USSlft 
 
 RON 
 
 | 
 
 SERIES OF LETTER^ 
 
 V/ITH ^j PREFACE By 
 
 J.A.FROUDE M.A. 
 
 HODOER AND STOUGHTON, 
 
 2. 7, PAT E R N O S T E R RO W, 
 
A 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
IS RUSSIA WRONG? 
 
IS RUSSIA WRONG? 
 
 A RUSSIAN LADY, 
 
 ^NoviRova 
 ^ Kireieva. 
 
 WITH A PREFACE 
 
 J. A. FROUDE, M.A. 
 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON, 
 27, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 MDCCCLXXVII. 
 
, 
 
 Printed by Hazell, Watson, and Viney, London and Aylesbury, 
 
NICOLAS KIREEFF, 
 
 THE FIRST RUSSIAN VOLUNTEER KILLED IN 
 
 SERVIA, JULY T 6 , l876,| 
 THESE LETTERS ARE DEDICATED. 
 
 S3265S79 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 VERY few words will suffice for an introduction of 
 the following letters. The writer is a Russian lady 
 well acquainted with England, who has seen with 
 regret the misconceptions which she considers pre- 
 vail among us as to the character of her country- 
 men ; she has therefore employed such skill as she 
 possesses in an honourable attempt to remove 
 them. Individuals, however great their oppor- 
 tunities, can but speak with certainty of what they 
 personally know, and " O. K." may draw too wide 
 inferences from the experiences of her own circle ; 
 but she writes in good faith, and any contribution 
 to our knowledge, which is true as far as it goes, 
 ought to be welcome to us, welcome to us 
 especially at the present crisis, when the wise or 
 unwise conduct of English statesmen may effect 
 incalculably for good or evil the fortunes of many 
 
viii Preface. 
 
 millions of mankind. To Russia and England has 
 fallen the task of introducing European civilization 
 into Asia. It is a thankless labour at the best ; 
 but circumstances have forced an obligation upon 
 both of us, which neither they nor we can relin- 
 quish ; and our success depends for its character 
 on the relations which we can establish between 
 ourselves. If we can work harmoniously together 
 as for a common object, the progress of the Asiatic 
 people will be peaceful and rapid. If we are to be 
 jealous rivals, watching each other's movements 
 with suspicion, and on the look-out to thwart and 
 defeat each other, every kingdom and tribe from the 
 Bosphorus to the Wall of China will be a centre of 
 intrigue ; and the establishment of the new order 
 of things may be retarded for centuries, or dis- 
 graced by wars and revolutions from which we 
 shall all alike be sufferers. On the broadest 
 grounds, therefore, it is our interest to be on good 
 terms with Russia, unless there is something in the 
 Muscovite proceedings so unqualifiedly bad that 
 we are positively obliged to separate ourselves 
 from them. And before arriving at such a con- 
 
Preface. ix 
 
 elusion we must take more pains than we have done 
 hitherto to know what the Russians are. If we 
 could ''crumple" them up as Mr. Cobden spoke of 
 doing, we might prefer to reign in the East without 
 a rival. But " crumpling up " is a long process, in 
 which nothing is certain but the expense of it. 
 That enterprise we shall certainly not attempt. 
 There remains, therefore, the alternative : either to 
 settle into an attitude of fixed hostility to a Power 
 which will always exist side by side by us, or to 
 place on Russia's action towards the Asiatic races 
 the same favourable construction which we allow 
 to our own, and to ask ourselves whether in 
 Russia's conduct there is anything materially 
 different from what we too accept as necessary 
 in similar circumstances. 
 
 The war of 1854 was a first step in what I 
 considered then, and consider now, to have been 
 the wrong course a course leading direct, if per- 
 sisted in, to most deplorable issues. That war had 
 been made inevitable from the indignation of the 
 Liberal party throughout Europe at Russia's inter- 
 ference in Hungary. Professedly a war in defence 
 
x Preface. 
 
 of Turkey, it was fought really for European 
 liberty. European liberty is no longer in danger, 
 nor has the behaviour of Turkey since the peace 
 been of a kind to give her a claim on our interest 
 for her own sake. The Ottoman Empire has for 
 half a century existed upon sufferance. An inde- 
 pendence accompanied with a right of interference 
 by other nations with its internal administration has 
 lost its real meaning, and the great Powers have 
 been long agreed that the Porte cannot be left to 
 govern its Christian subjects after its own pleasure. 
 ,The question is merely in whom the right of super- 
 vision is to reside. Before the Crimean war they 
 were under the sole protectorate of Russia. The 
 'Treaty of Paris abolished an exclusive privilege 
 ch was considered dangerous, and substituted 
 for it, by implication, a general European protec- 
 torate. It seemed likely to many of us that while 
 other objects of the war might have been secured, 
 the real occasion of it would be forgotten ; that the 
 Christians, having no longer Russia to appeal to, 
 would be worse treated than before ; and that after 
 a very few years the problem of how to compel the 
 
Preface. xi 
 
 Turk to respect his engagements would certainly 
 return. Such anticipations, in the enthusiasm of 
 the moment, were ridiculed as absurd and un- 
 patriotic. The Turk himself was to rise out of 
 the war regenerate, and a "new creature." He 
 was to be the advanced guard of enlightenment, 
 the bulwark of Europe against barbarism. There 
 was no measure to the hopes in which English 
 people indulged in those days of delight and 
 excitement. But facts have gone their natural 
 way. The Turk has gone back, not forward. He 
 remains what he has always been, a blight upon 
 every province on which he has set his heel. His 
 Christian subjects have appealed once more for 
 help, and the great Powers, England included, 
 have admitted the justice of their complaints, and 
 the necessity of a remedy. Unhappily England 
 could not agree with the other Powers on the, 
 nature of the remedy required. Russia, unable' 4 
 to trust further to promises so often made and 
 so uniformly broken, has been obliged to take^ 
 active measures, and at once the Crimean ashes 
 have again been blown into a flame ; there is a cry 
 
xii Preface. 
 
 Russia has sinister aims of her own, that 
 English interests are in danger, and that we must 
 rush to the support of our ancient friend and ally. 
 How we are decently to do it, under what plea, 
 and for what purpose, after the part which we took 
 at the Conference, is not explained. The rest of 
 Europe is not alarmed. The rest of Europe is 
 satisfied that the Turk must be coerced, and looks 
 on, if not pleased, yet at least indifferent. If we 
 go into the struggle we must go in without a single 
 ally, and when we have .succeeded in defeating 
 Russia, and re-establishing Turkey (there is an- 
 other possibility, that we may not succeed, but 
 this I will not contemplate), as soon as we have 
 succeeded, what then ? After the censures to which 
 we stand committed on Turkey's misconduct we 
 cannot in decency hand back Bulgaria to her 
 without some check upon her tyranny. We shall 
 be obliged to take the responsibility on ourselves. 
 England will have to be sole protector of the 
 Bulgarian Christians, and it is absolutely certain 
 that they would then be wholly and entirely at the 
 Turk's mercy. It is absolutely certain that we 
 
Preface. xiii 
 
 should be contracting obligations which we could 
 not fulfil if we wished. We should demand a few 
 fine promises from the Porte, which would be for- 
 gotten as soon as made. A British protectorate 
 is too ridiculous to be thought of, and if the altern- 
 ative be to place Bulgaria under a government of 
 its own, that is precisely the thing which Russia 
 is trying to do. To go to war with such a dilemma 
 staring us in the face, and with no object which we 
 can distinctly define, would be as absurd an enter- 
 prise as England was ever entangled in. Yet even 
 after Lord Derby's seeming recognition of the 
 character of the situation, there is still room for 
 misgiving. In constitutional countries politicians 
 will snatch at passing gusts of popular excitement 
 to win a momentary victory for themselves or their 
 party. Our Premier, unless he has been mis- 
 represented, has dreamt of closing his political 
 career with a transformation scene, Europe in 
 flames behind him, and himself posing like Har- 
 lequin before the footlights. Happily there is a 
 power which is stronger than even Parliamentary 
 majorities, in public opinion ; and public opinion 
 
xiv Preface. 
 
 has, I trust, already decided that English bayonets 
 shall not be stained again in defence of Turkish 
 tyranny. It will be well if we can proceed, when 
 the present war is over, to consider dispassionately 
 the wider problems, of which the Turkish difficulty 
 is only a part ; and if the letters of " O. K." assist 
 ever so little in making us acquainted with the 
 Russian character, the writer will have reason to 
 congratulate herself on so happy a result of her 
 efforts. 
 
 J. A. F. 
 
 December, 1877. 
 
 *** A portion of the profits of this work will be devoted 
 to the Russian Sick and Wounded Fund. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. SECRET SOCIETIES AND THE WAR . . 17 
 
 II. THE Two RUSSIAS Moscow AND ST. 
 
 PETERSBURG 29 
 
 III. COMPENSATION FOR SACRIFICES ... 41 
 
 IV. TERMS OF PEACE POSSIBLE AND IMPOSSIBLE 53 
 
 V. WHY RUSSIANS HATE THE TURKS . . 66 
 
 VI. SOME ENGLISH PREJUDICES .... 77 
 
 VII. TRADITIONAL POLICY 93 
 
 VIII. RUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA .... 103 
 
 IX. MR. FORBES' ARTICLE 113 
 
 X. M. KATKOFF AND THE "Moscow GAZETTE" 12; 
 
LETTER I. 
 SECRET SOCIETIES AND THE WAR. 
 
IS RUSSIA WRONG ? 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 SECRET SOCIETIES AND THE WAR. 
 
 \Thefollowing letter is an answer to an article signed "N" 
 in ' ' Macmillarfs Magazine, " Nov. 1877, which contained 
 in a small compass most of the misstatements concern- 
 ing the origin of the war, current in hostile circles^ 
 
 T ORD SALISBURY recently advised the 
 '"^ victims of the baseless scare of a Russian 
 invasion of India to buy large-sized maps and 
 learn how insuperable are the obstacles which 
 nature has placed between the 'land of the Czar 
 and the dominions of the Empress. Would it be 
 too presumptuous in a Russian to express a wish 
 that Englishmen would pay a little attention to 
 
20 Letter I. 
 
 the history of their own country in the days of 
 the great Elizabeth, before attempting to prp- 
 nounce an opinion upon the action of the Russian 
 people in this war? Perhaps the discovery that 
 only three centuries ago the heroism and enthu- 
 siasm of the English Protestants anticipated in 
 Holland and France the course taken last year by 
 the newly-awakened enthusiasm of the Russian 
 people in Bulgaria and Servia would moderate the 
 vehemence of their censure, even if it did not 
 secure for my countrymen the sympathy which 
 Englishmen used to feel for those who are willing 
 to sacrifice all, even life itself, in the cause of 
 Liberty and Right. 
 
 Without sympathy understanding is impossible. 
 Prejudice closes the door against all explanation. 
 But no one who had entered into the spirit of the 
 times when Sir Philip Sydney went forth to fight 
 in the Low Countries, and Francis Drake swept 
 the Spanish Main, could possibly have made so 
 many grotesque blunders as those which are to be 
 found' in an article in Macmiilan's Magazine for 
 November, entitled, " Pan-Slavists and the Slav 
 Committees," and signed " N." It is not very 
 
Secret Societies and the War. 2 1 
 
 difficult to understand the source of " N.'s" inspira- 
 tion. Instead of ascertaining the objects of the 
 Slavophiles from their own lips, he has repeated 
 all the stupid calumnies wherewith our enemies 
 have vainly attempted to prejudice our Czar against 
 the Slav cause. That is not fair. If a Russian 
 writer were to describe the operations of the 
 Eastern Question Association and Mr. Gladstone 
 from the slanders of the English Turkophiles, he 
 would not err more from the truth than does this 
 English writer who caricatures the Slav Committees 
 by repeating the calumnies of some of our official 
 enemies. 
 
 " The Slav Committees," says " N.," " have 
 brought about this war," an accusation of which 
 I am proud, for the only alternative to war was 
 a selfish abandonment of our Southern brethren 
 to the merciless vengeance of the Turks. But 
 when he says that we brought it about in order 
 " to crush Russia in its present form of Govern- 
 ment, the absolute rule of the Czar," he states 
 that which is not only untrue, but what is known 
 to be an absurdity by every Slavophile in Russia. 
 The statement is even more absurd than the 
 
22 Letter I. 
 
 assertion made by Lord Beaconsfield that the 
 Servian war was made by the Secret Societies. 
 The Slavonic Committees are not secret, and they 
 are certainly not composed of Revolutionists. It 
 used to be the reproach of the Slav party that it 
 was in all things too Conservative. Now we are 
 told that we are Radicals who hate the present 
 form of the Russian State. Both reproaches can 
 hardly be true. As a matter of fact both are 
 false. " N." charges M. Aksakoff with being, as 
 President of the Moscow Committee, the head- 
 centre of revolutionary Russia. As one of M. 
 AksakofFs numerous friends, I may be permitted 
 to say that there never was a more monstrous 
 assertion. M. Aksakoff, although no courtier, is 
 devotedly loyal. His wife was our Empress's 
 lady-in-waiting, and governess to the Duchess of 
 Edinburgh ; and he himself, although abused in 
 the Turkophile papers as a Russian Mazzini, is one 
 of the last men in the world to undertake a cru- 
 sade against the Czardom. Simple, honest, enthu- 
 siastic, M. Aksakoff is no conspirator; he is simply 
 the leading spokesman of the Russian Slavs, by 
 whom he was elected to the post of President of 
 
Secret Societies and the War. 23 
 
 the Moscow Slavonic Committee with only one 
 dissentient voice. Much surprise was expressed 
 that there should be even one vote against his 
 appointment But that surprise was succeeded by 
 a smile when it was announced that the solitary 
 dissentient was M. Aksakoff himself. So far from 
 aiming at the destruction of Russian State, they 
 aim at the much less ambitious and more useful 
 task of emancipating their Southern brethren from 
 Turkish oppression. There is no mystery abov 
 the operations of our committees. Their work is 
 prosaic in the extreme. Brought into existence 
 long ago by the operation of the same benevolent 
 spirit which leads English people to send tracts 
 to Fiji cannibals, these committees laboured un- 
 noticed and unseen until the close of 1875. At 
 that time occurred the great revolt of the Southern 
 Slavs against their Turkish despots, and it is the 
 peculiar glory of the Slavonic committees that 
 they were able to give rapid effect to the enthu- 
 siasm kindled in Russia by the story of the 
 sufferings of our brethren, and by sustaining the 
 struggle for emancipation were able to keep the 
 condition of the Slavs before the Powers until at 
 
2 4 Letter I. 
 
 last the Russian Government stepped in to free 
 them from bondage. All Russia Czar, Govern- 
 ment, and all is now but one vast Slavonic 
 Committee for the liberation of the Southern 
 Slavs ; and we have far less reason for wishing 
 to destroy a State which has so nobly under- 
 taken the heroic task of liberating our brethren 
 than Englishmen have for desiring to upset their 
 Parliamentary system which has enabled a Lord 
 Beaconsfield to balk the generous aspirations 
 expressed by the nation during the autumn of 
 1876. 
 
 It is entirely false that to our Slav Committees 
 belongs the honour of having originated the in- 
 surrection of the Herzegovina. After it began it 
 attracted our attention, and we would have assisted 
 it if we could, but, unfortunately, the Russian 
 people were not aroused, and there were next to 
 no funds at our disposal to assist the heroic insur- 
 gents whose desperate resolve to achieve liberty 
 or death on their native hills first compelled the 
 Powers to face what Europe calls the Eastern 
 Question, but what we call the emancipation of 
 the Slavs. The utmost that we could do in the 
 
Secret Societies and the War. 25 
 
 first year of the insurrection was to collect some 
 10,000 for the relief of the refugees in the 
 Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Ragusa. English 
 sympathisers, notably Mr. Freeman, also collected 
 contributions for the same cause. General Tcher- 
 nayeff proposed in September to take fifty non- 
 commissioned officers to Montenegro, with arms for 
 five hundred men ; but he could not carry out his 
 scheme because we had no funds. I state this as 
 a matter of fact, which I regret. It is the duty 
 of free Slavs to assist their enslaved brethren to 
 throw off the yoke of bondage. Our war may be 
 condemned, but the heroism of our volunteers is 
 appreciated even by those who support the Turks. 
 Mr. Kinglake, for example who, I regret to say, 
 withholds from our cause the great influence of 
 his illustrious name refers to this aspect of the 
 question in the Preface of the last edition of his 
 "Crimean War," in terms so generous and yet so 
 just, that no Russian can read his words without 
 the deepest emotion. Can Englishmen wonder 
 that we Russians, brethren in race and in religion 
 to the Rayahs of Northern Turkey, should endea- 
 vour to assist them as the English of Elizabeth's 
 
26 Letter L 
 
 reign endeavoured to assist the Protestants of 
 Holland and of France ? But the fact that we 
 would glory in assisting our enslaved brethren to 
 throw off the yoke of the Turk should entitle us 
 to be believed when we sorrowfully admit that as 
 a matter of fact we have no claim to the credit of 
 having fomented the insurrection which every one 
 now can see was a death-blow to the domination 
 of the Ottoman. It was not till after the insur- 
 rection had made considerable progress not, in 
 fact, until the atrocities in Bulgaria and the Servian 
 war that Russia awoke and assumed the liberat- 
 ing mission which, after great and terrible sacrifices, 
 promises at last to be crowned with complete 
 success. 
 
 It is a mistake to say that our Russian volun- 
 teers in Servia were paid. It is also false that 
 9,000 Russians went to Servia. We could only 
 find the travelling expenses of 4,000, none of 
 whom received any other pay, but all of whom 
 were willing nay, joyful to die for the cause. 
 One-third of them perished as martyrs, but their 
 blood has not been shed in vain. Their death 
 sealed the doom of the Turks. The Czar has 
 
Secret Societies and the War. 2 7 
 
 undertaken the championship of the Slavonic 
 cause, and the war will only end when the libera- 
 tion of the Southern Slavs is complete. So far 
 from desiring the war to destroy the Czardom, we 
 were never so proud of Russia as we are to-day ; 
 never were we so unanimously and enthusiastically 
 united in support of our heroic Czar, who, after 
 liberating twenty-three millions of serfs at home, 
 is now crowning his reign with glory by emanci- 
 pating the Southern Slavs. 
 
LETTER II. 
 
 THE TWO RUSSIAS MOSCOW AND 
 ST. PETERSBURG. 
 
LETTER II. 
 
 THE TWO RUSSIAS MOSCOW AND 
 ST. PETERSBURG. 
 
 \The " Times" of Nov. 14, \%*ii, published a letter from its 
 correspondent in St. Petersburg, describing a minority 
 in the Russian capital as wearied of the war and 
 anxious to make peace, regardless of the fate of the 
 Southern Slavs. The " Pall Mall Gazette? noticing 
 his remarks under the suggestive heading " Reported 
 return of reason in Russia? exulted in the hope that the 
 Russians were about to abandon their heroic enterprise. 
 This delusion can be removed most effectually by the 
 simple statement of facts, too often ignored in England ^\ 
 
 O the people who made the war are already 
 repenting of their folly ! " sneers an expo- 
 nent of the gospel of cynicism, as he lays down the 
 Times of last Wednesday, after perusing a letter 
 from its St. Petersburg correspondent with the 
 above heading. " Indeed ! " I exclaim, with un- 
 feigned surprise, " that is strange news. Who says 
 so ? What is your authority ? " 
 
32 Letter II. 
 
 "The St. Petersburg correspondent of the Times!' 
 rejoins the cynic, <c who, as the Pall Mall Gazette 
 says, is known as the writer of a famous book on 
 Russia, which appeared some months ago in other 
 words, all but naming Mr. R. Mackenzie Wallace." 
 
 " And Mr. Wallace says the people who made 
 the war are repenting of what they did," I continue. 
 " Where does he say so ? I don't see any such 
 statement in his letter." 
 
 " Do you not ? " he asks in amazement. " What 
 can be plainer than his account of the regret with 
 which the war, its objects, and its sacrifices are 
 spoken of in St. Petersburg by men who c consider 
 themselves good patriots.' Here, for instance, he 
 speaks of the statesman or official dignitary, the 
 representative of the St. Petersburg Liberal press, 
 and the commercial man, all of whose sentiments 
 are faithfully reproduced. What more would you 
 have as a proof that those who made the war are 
 repenting in sackcloth and ashes of their Quixotic 
 undertaking ? " 
 
 I could not help smiling. " And so that is the 
 evidence upon which you and Mr. Wallace build 
 your theories of ' peace possibilities in Russia ! ' 
 
The Two Russias. 33 
 
 These people they did not make the war ! Not 
 they, indeed ! It was not these ' patriots ' to whose 
 voices our Emperor gave ear ! " 
 
 And so dismissing my Turkophile acquaint- 
 ance, let me in a few sentences correct the false 
 impression which that letter in the Times has 
 produced, as the high character and deserved 
 reputation of its author may mislead many. 
 
 The English people were told last year, and 
 truly told, that there are two Russias. There is 
 official Russia, and national Russia. There is, in a 
 word, the Russia of St. Petersburg, and the Russia 
 of Moscow. Now, the Times correspondent lives 
 in St. Petersburg, and he transmits faithfully 
 enough to England his impressions of public 
 opinion in St. Petersburg. The only danger is 
 that his readers may mistake St. Petersburg for 
 Russia. But St. Petersburg, thank God ! is not 
 Russia, any more than the West-end of London is 
 England. The whole course of European history, 
 for the last two years, would be utterly incom- 
 prehensible on the contrary hypothesis. It was 
 because foreigners took their impression of Russia 
 from St. Petersburg that they blundered so grossly 
 
 3 
 
34 Letter IL 
 
 about the course which events would take in the 
 East, and they will blunder not less grossly if, dis- 
 regarding, the lessons of the past, they once more 
 entertain the hollow fallacy that the national 
 opinion of Russia can be ascertained in the salons 
 of St. Petersburg or by interviewing official person- 
 ages on the banks of the Neva. 
 
 There are good men and true in St. Petersburg, 
 as there are good men and true even in the clubs 
 of Pall Mall ; but the typical St. Petersburger, of 
 whom Mr. Wallace writes, is as destitute of faith 
 and of enthusiasm as the West-ender. But just as 
 you say London is Turkophile, although many 
 Londoners are anti-Turks, so we say St. Petersburg 
 is anti-Slav. But then it must not be forgotten 
 that St. Petersburg is not Russia. Peter the Great 
 styled it " a window out of which Russia could 
 look upon the Western world ; " but it is not a 
 window by which the Western world can look in 
 upon Russia. No, St. Petersburg is not Russian ! 
 It is cosmopolitan. It is not vitalised with the 
 fierce warm current of Russia's life-blood. It 
 stands apart. It undoubtedly exercises a great 
 influence in ordinary times, but at great crises it is 
 
The Two Russias. 35 
 
 powerless. St. Petersburg did its best to avert the 
 war. It sneered at our Servian volunteers nay, 
 if it had had its way it would have arrested them 
 as malefactors. Those who went first to Servia 
 on their heroic mission were compelled to smuggle 
 themselves as it were out of the country for fear 
 of the interference of officialdom supreme at St. 
 Petersburg. St. Petersburg would, if it could, have 
 suppressed our Slav Committees, and it did its 
 best to induce our generous Czar to violate that 
 knightly word which he pledged at Moscow, amid 
 the unbounded enthusiasm of all his subjects, to 
 take up the cause of the Slavs, " although he had 
 to take it up alone." In the midst of the great 
 uprising of the nation occasioned by the Bulgarian 
 atrocities and the Servian war, St. Petersburg was 
 comparatively unmoved, a mere dead cold cinder 
 in the midst of the glowing warmth of our national 
 revival. All the diplomatic negotiations which 
 preceded the war are inexplicable unless this is 
 borne in mind. My countrymen, rising in the 
 sacred wrath kindled by the inexpiable wrongs 
 inflicted upon their kinsmen, pressed sternly, 
 steadily onward to redress these wrongs, to ter- 
 
36 Letter II. 
 
 minate for ever the status quo, which rendered 
 them chronic, inevitable. Official Russia, unable 
 to arrest the movement entirely, nevertheless 
 attempted, and attempted in vain, to divert it 
 by diplomatic contrivances. We had one device 
 after another invented in rapid succession to avoid 
 the war by which alone our brethren could be 
 freed. It is humiliating to recall the tortuous 
 windings of Russian diplomacy, the inexhaustible 
 expedients by which the Petersburg party en- 
 deavoured to balk the fulfilment of the national 
 aspirations. 
 
 The last of these was the Protocol ! By that 
 famous document official Russia consented, for the 
 sake of the European concert and the peace of 
 the Continent, to postpone indefinitely all action 
 on behalf of the Southern Slavs, receiving in 
 return for this sacrifice of her mission a promise 
 that the Great Powers would watch the Turks, 
 and after a period of time, not particularly speci- 
 fied, when it had once more, for the thousandth 
 time, been demonstrated to the satisfaction even 
 of the diplomatic mind that Turkish domination 
 is utterly incapable of reform, improvement, or 
 
The Two Russias. 37 
 
 other amelioration than its total destruction, the 
 Powers promised oh, great concession ! to con- 
 sider what should then be done to save our 
 tortured brethren from the Ottoman horde. This 
 was the patent St. Petersburg device for disap- 
 pointing the hopes of the Russian people, and 
 eagerly these officials, representatives of the 
 Liberal press, and commercial men, who are now 
 prating of peace to the Times correspondent, 
 hoped that it would stave off what they are derid- 
 ing now as the "Quixotic enterprise" of the War 
 of Liberation. In Moscow, however that great 
 heart of the Russian Empire the suspense occa- 
 sioned by the negotiations about the Protocol 
 was one longdrawn-out agony. Those who lived 
 in the very heart of the national movement can 
 never forget the terrible forebodings of these 
 dismal days. We all moved under the pressun 
 of a great dread. Was it to end thus ? Were 
 all our sacrifices to be sacrificed ; was the blood 
 of our martyrs spilt in vain ? Was Holy Russia 
 Holy Russia no more, but a mere appanage to 
 cosmopolitan St. Petersburg ? When the news 
 came that the English Cabinet was insisting upon 
 
38 Letter II. 
 
 alterations we breathed more freely. " Demo- 
 bilisation ! " we cried. "No, it is not demobilisa- 
 tion ; it is demoralisation ! The Czar is too noble^ 
 too good a Russian ; he will never consent to 
 that ! " But, then, again the news came that 
 even that was to be accepted ; and the sky grew 
 very dark overhead, and we went about as if in 
 the chamber of death, speaking in low accents 
 and oppressed by a terrible fear of that national 
 dishonour which we Russians, strange as it may 
 appear to some people, dread even more than 
 death ! At last, to our great relief, the cloud 
 lifted, the darkness disappeared, for the Turks 
 rejected the Protocol ; and the declaration of war 
 was as grateful to us as the bright burst of sun- 
 light in the east after a long, dark, stormy night. 
 
 And here may I venture, as a Russian, to say 
 that, for securing by his provisoes the rejection of 
 the Protocol by the Turks, Lord Derby has at least 
 done one good thing at the English Foreign Office. 
 He may not have intended it, but, as a matter of 
 fact, he was our most efficient ally. But for him 
 St. Petersburg might have triumphed. Russia 
 might have been disgraced, and the Turks might 
 
The Two Russias. 39 
 
 have received a new lease of power. The Slav 
 world has reason to thank him for having secured 
 the victory of our cause by rendering it impossible 
 for Russia to refrain from drawing the sword in 
 the cause of the Southern Slavs. 
 
 Even St. Petersburg could not shrink from the 
 contest after that last deadly blow was adminis- 
 tered by the Turks to the schemes of the diplo- 
 matists. The war began. It is going on, and it 
 will go on until the end is accomplished. No 
 babble of St. Petersburg will now be able to bring 
 that war to a dishonourable close ; and no peace 
 can be honourable that does not secure the object 
 of the war. St. Petersburg is even worse than 
 usual just now. Its best elements are in Bulgaria 
 and Roumania. The Czar is there, and the sight 
 of the fiendish atrocities perpetrated by the Turks 
 upon our patient soldiers can only confirm his 
 resolution to persevere " until the end." And 
 behind him there stands, arrayed as one man, the 
 whole Russian nation, ready to endure any sacri- 
 fices rather than leave the Turk to re-establish his 
 desolating sovereignty over our brethren. 
 
 Is it so strange to Englishmen that there should 
 
4O Letter II. 
 
 be two Russias ? Are there not two Englands ? 
 The England that is true to English love for 
 liberty, and the England that sees in liberty itself 
 only a text for a sneer ? There is the England of 
 St. James's Hall* and the England of the Guild- 
 hall. An England with a soul and a heart, and 
 an England which has only a pocket. In other 
 words, there is the England of Mr. Gladstone and 
 the England of Lord Beaconsfield. We Russians, 
 too, have our sordid cynics, but they are in a 
 minority. They may sneer, but they cannot rule ; 
 and, with that distinction, let me conclude by 
 saying that these Petersburg Tchinovniks, whose 
 views Mr. Wallace reproduces, are now what they 
 have always been, the Beaconsfields of Russia ! 
 
 ' * I desire to remind the friends of the poor Slavs of the 
 debt of gratitude they owe to the Eastern Question Associa- 
 tion for its successful efforts to disseminate sound information 
 on the subject of the war. The foreign readers will be glad to 
 know that the above Association originated in the St. James's 
 Hall Conference. The Duke of Westminster and the Earl 
 of Shaftesbury are respectively President and Vice-President ; 
 Mr. William Morris, Treasurer ; Messrs. G. Howard, F. W. 
 Chesson, and J. W. Probyn, Hon. Secretaries ; and Mr. E. S. 
 Pryce, Secretary. The offices are in Great George Street, 
 Westminster. 
 
LETTER III. 
 
 COMPENSATION FOR SACRIFICES. 
 
LETTER III. 
 
 COMPENSATION FOR SACRIFICES. 
 
 \Prince Was silt chikoff, President of the Slavonic Committee 
 at St. Petersburg, published in the " Severnoy Vestnik" 
 an article on the compensation which in his own 
 private opinion Russia had a right to demand at the 
 end of the war ; the importance ascribed to his sugges- 
 tions in England called forth the following letter :] 
 
 " T T is utterly impossible," said a friend of mine' 
 " to make Englishmen believe that any nation 
 is capable of doing anything from unselfish mo- 
 tives. If you tell them so they think at once that 
 you are humbugging them ! " 
 
 " Could you not persuade them that it is possible 
 for a nation to go mad ? " I asked. 
 
 " Yes," said he ; " in that case it is possible that 
 they may believe you not otherwise ! " 
 
 Well, I thought, if to perform an act of heroic 
 
44 Letter III. 
 
 self-sacrifice is to be mad, the Russian nation is 
 mad, and I am proud of it ! This is undoubtedly 
 a mad war, if it is viewed as a speculation. It is 
 evidently either a folly or a heroism ! 
 
 " Do you believe that Russia is levying an un- 
 selfish war ? " I have been asked incredulously, 
 " Is it for the Southern Slavs she is fighting ? 
 Not for Kars, Batoum, and the free passage of 
 the Dardanelles ? " 
 
 " Answer me," I replied. " You English are great 
 financiers. Will the war pay as a speculation ? 
 What possible compensation would repay us for 
 our losses ? Will the killed come to life again, or 
 would we feel their death less keenly if we annexed 
 Armenia ? " 
 
 "No," he objected, "but Governments pay scant 
 heed to the agonies inflicted upon the tools of their 
 ambition." 
 
 " The Government, then ; is it a good specula- 
 tion for it ? How much is the war costing us ? 
 We have lost 70,000 men already, and every man, 
 your economists say, has a money value. The 
 campaign is costing about .250,000 per day, or 
 more. Take the smaller sum, and ask yourself 
 
Compensation for Sacrifices. 45 
 
 whether all the territory which we can possibly 
 gain is worth the cost ? " 
 
 "Why, then/' he rejoined, " do you go on fight- 
 ing for prestige ? " 
 
 " Listen," I said ; < your child is attacked by a 
 wolf. At the peril of your life you rush to the 
 rescue, and kill the animal. What would you feel 
 if a neighbour asked with a sneer why you could 
 take so much trouble when the skin of a wolf is 
 worth so little ? It is our duty, and duty is the 
 first of ' Russian interests.' As for prestige, there 
 are moments in national, as in private, life when 
 such trivial considerations are out of the question." 
 
 Apropos of compensation, Prince Wassiltchikoff s 
 article in the Severnoy Vestnick deals with that 
 very subject. The word is badly chosen. There 
 can be no compensation for sacrifices such as ours 
 but the complete deliverance of the Slavs. Prince 
 Wassiltchikoff fears that in a moment of impulsive 
 magnanimity we may refuse all compensation for 
 the labours and the blood which the war has cost 
 us. Compensation is impossible. He demands a 
 war fine as a matter of duty. But what fine can 
 we exact from the bankrupt Ottoman ? 
 
46 Letter III. 
 
 Prince Wassiltchikoff, who, however, speaks 
 solely in his own name, suggests that, not being 
 able to pay in cash, the Turk might surrender 
 his fleet. The suggestion has created some little 
 stir perhaps needlessly. Before the war is over 
 not only the fleet, but even Turkey in Europe, 
 may have ceased to exist. As the Moscow Gazette 
 graphically remarked " When a man dies the 
 soul disappears, but the body remains. With the 
 Russian navy the case is reversed. In the Black 
 Sea the fleet exists no more ; but its spirit sur- 
 vives to animate our heroic sailors, whose torpedoes 
 have already diminished the number of Turkish 
 ironclads.'' The gallantry of Dubassoff, Shistakofif, 
 Prince Galitzine, and many others, encourages the 
 hope that other men-of-war may share the fate of 
 the monitors sunk in the Matchin Canal. 
 
 Prince WassiltchikofTs innocent suggestion has 
 raised quite a littte storm in the English papers. 
 "This is Russia's magnanimity," cry the Turko- 
 philes. " Her crusade of emancipation was a mere 
 pretext to cover her design on Turkish ironclads ! " 
 
 Remarks of this kind could easily be foreseen. 
 But Turkish ironclads are not the best representa- 
 
Compensation for Sacrifices. 47 
 
 tives of European fleets.* Many of them are 
 already out of repair, and they are getting worse 
 daily. There are not twenty-five of them alto- 
 gether. Yet Russia, if disengaged now, would be 
 purchasing them at two millions per ship. A 
 pretty bargain, is it not ? Let us stick to our 
 arithmetic. Russia, they say, has gone to war on 
 the chance of gaining the Turkish fleet. Well, let 
 us see what Russia is paying for her bargain. The 
 war will not cost a penny less than ; 5 0,000,000. 
 How much more money. will be spent before we 
 can demand the fleet as an indemnity is unknown. 
 But the Turkish navy, even when new, surely did 
 not cost so much. What does a sea-going iron- 
 clad of the latest fashion cost ? About half a 
 million is it not so ? Then with the money 
 
 * Since the above was written I am glad to find my obser- 
 vations confirmed by no less an authority than Lord Eustace 
 Cecil, Under Secretary of the English War Office, whose 
 Turkish sympathies are undisguised. Speaking at Hereford 
 on December ist,he said that the Turkish fleet, having been 
 built at least a dozen years ago, as a power of offence was 
 almost useless, for its armour plates were only constructed 
 to resist guns of a very inferior calibre. He did not believe 
 there was one Turkish ironclad that would resist either a 
 38 or a 35-ton gun. 
 
48 Letter III. 
 
 spent already we could have bought a hundred 
 first-class ironclads. I am not quick at figures, 
 but that is simple enough. The Turks have not 
 even ten first-class vessels. But, then, say the 
 timid Englishmen who are always pretending to 
 be afraid of Russia, it is the sudden increase of 
 Russian naval power that is the danger we dread. 
 You might have bought a better fleet, but not 
 all at once. It would need four or five years. 
 Well, suppose it would ! But do you think that, 
 after such a tremendous war as the present, we 
 shall be anxious even if we were ever so aggres- 
 sive to attack any one else for at least that time ? 
 We would need longer to heal our wounds and to 
 repair our losses ; and in that time England anol 
 the other Powers could proportionately increase 
 their navies. 
 
 Germany took five milliards from France without 
 English objections. If we could take half of that 
 sum from the Turks England probably would not 
 object neither. But, with one quarter of that 
 money, we could build twice as good a fleet as 
 the Turks have now, and have it ready with 
 the assistance of the English and American 
 
Compensation for Sacrifices. 49 
 
 ship-builders as soon as we could possibly be in 
 a position to use the Turkish fleet, if it passed 
 into our hands. 
 
 If we got the Turkish fleet, who knows but that 
 we might sell it in order to pay part a very small 
 part of our war expenses ? 
 
 The Times, I see, suggests that after we Russians 
 have beaten the Turks the fleet should be sold by 
 auction for the benefit of the Turkish bondholders ! 
 How very kind and considerate in the Times ! I 
 do enjoy that proposal ! We Russians have such 
 strong reasons for sympathising with the English 
 holders of Ottoman bonds ! But for them and the 
 money which they poured into the pocket of the 
 Sultan this war would long since have been over. 
 Every thousand pounds lent to the Turk by Eng- 
 land has cost Russia perhaps more than one 
 precious life. Should the fleet of the Turk ever 
 come into our hands we certainly shall not use it 
 to raise money for the distressed bondholders. 
 Better burn it ! But the suggestion is probably 
 only line mauvaise plaisanterie a bad little joke on 
 the part of the Times. 
 
 Yet I hear the City people accept the suggestion 
 
 4 
 
50 Letter III. 
 
 as a very happy one, and almost fancy that it will 
 greatly delight Turkey if her navy becomes the 
 prey of her generous protector. It seems to me, 
 however, that, although the Turks have had plenty 
 of words of sympathy and promises of help from 
 England, they have little cause for gratitude for so 
 platonic a devotion, which only had the effect of 
 irritating Russia. The worst friends of the Turks, 
 from the first, have been those men who are now 
 speaking as if they had deserved the fleet as a 
 reward for counsels which lured their friends to 
 ruin. 
 
 Prince Wassiltchikoff is a man of high character 
 and position. I never met anybody who did not 
 esteem the straightforwardness of his views ; but 
 with all that I fail to understand why the Times 
 should treat his theory about the Dardanelles 
 question as if his letter were written by Prince 
 Gortschakoff.* Russians are not' sent to Siberia 
 for having an opinion of their own about affairs in 
 the East. Prince Gortschakoff, in his despatch to 
 
 * It turns out that the Prince never put forward as his own 
 the view imputed to him, but introduced it for the purpose of 
 refutation. It is to the credit of the Manchester Guardian 
 that it discovered the blunder before the appearance of the 
 authorized contradiction. 
 
Compensation for Sacrifices. 51 
 
 Lord Derby, in May, expressly disclaimed any 
 intention of settling the Dardanelles question, 
 except in accordance with the views of the Powers 
 of Europe. Of course our Imperial Chancellor 
 knows all about these things better than I do ; 
 but I express an opinion, shared by many of my 
 countrymen, that, in giving so many assurances, 
 and making so many concessions to the Powers, 
 Russia displays too great a condescension. Europe 
 does not help us in our battle. Why should she 
 interfere with the fruits of our victory ? 
 
LETTER IV. 
 TERMS OF PEACE POSSIBLE AND IMPOSSIBLE, 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 TERMS OF PEACE POSSIBLE AND IMPOSSIBLE. 
 
 Prince Gortschakoff, in his despatch to Lord Derby, dated 
 May i&tti, 1877, wrote as follows: "As far as 
 concerns Constantinople, without being able to prejudge 
 the course or issue of the war, the Imperial Cabinet 
 repeats that the acquisition of that capital is excluded 
 from the views of His Majesty the Emperor. They 
 recognise that in any case the future of Constantinople 
 is a question of common interest, which cannot be set- 
 tled otherwise than by a general understanding, and 
 that if the possession of the city were to be put in 
 question, it could not be allowed to belong to any of 
 the European Powers" The Emperor had pre- 
 viously held similar language to Lord A. Loftus. 
 No other introduction is necessary to the following 
 letter^ 
 
 f3 USSIAN papers mention a great personage 
 
 who, on overhearing some discussion about 
 
 the possible conclusion of peace, observed signifi- 
 
56 Letter IV. 
 
 cantly that the time was too serious for jokes. 
 Whoever the personage may be, we may bless him 
 for his remark. Yet English people discuss the 
 possibilities of peace without any consciousness that 
 their talk cannot be regarded as serious. There is 
 evidently an insurmountable difficulty on the part 
 of Englishmen to understand the way in which 
 we regard this war in Russia. Were it not so we 
 should hear less of the hopes so freely expressed 
 and so thoughtlessly cheered that foreign advice 
 might guide Russia in bringing our war to a close. 
 In England you have evidently forgotten all about 
 the object of the war in the eagerness with which 
 you have followed its details. The death-struggle 
 in Bulgaria and Armenia is to you what a gladia- 
 torial combat was to the pampered populace of 
 ancient Rome. You sit as spectators round the 
 arena, cheering now the Turk and now the Russian, 
 as if these brave men were being butchered solely 
 to afford you an exciting spectacle. Tired at 
 last, you cry, " Enough, enough ! clear the ring, 
 and pass on to some other sport." But had you 
 not ignored the nature of the fight you would never 
 ask to do that. It is not a mere gladiator's war. 
 
Terms of Peace Possible and Impossible. 57 
 
 It is not a duel between two Powers about some 
 punctilio of offended honour, which might be satis- 
 fied as Mr. Freeman so well says by the killing 
 of a decent number of people. Were it either of 
 these things there would be some reason for the 
 tragedy to close, for it would have been a crime 
 from the first. But the war in which my country- 
 men are dying by thousands, so far from being a 
 crime was an imperative duty, for it was the only 
 means for attaining an end the righteousness of 
 which all Europe has admitted. It was the only 
 way for Russia of being consistent. 
 
 We did not make war for the sake of war. We 
 sorrowfully but resolutely accepted that terrible 
 alternative because we had no other choice, since 
 ill-advised Turkey would not listen to the voice of 
 justice. To us it would be a crime if, after having 
 begun the work, we were to draw back without 
 having accomplished the object which alone justified 
 so terrible an undertaking. Hence all this talk of 
 mediation, intervention, conferences, and of peace 
 proposals sounds to us as mere mockery. There 
 can be no peace until we have attained our end, 
 and that we cannot do until we have completely 
 
58 Letter IV. 
 
 freed the Christian Slavs. The war to us is a cruel 
 reality, instead of merely a theatrical spectacle, 
 We bear the blows the mere sight of which unnerves 
 you. It is our hearths that are darkened by the 
 shadow of death. Yet in all Russia you will hear 
 no cry for peace until we have secured our end. I 
 grieve to say Russia has its Beaconsfields. But as 
 I said before, they are in a minority, and they 
 become what they ought to be thoroughly 
 Russian, when asked to die for their country. 
 Amongst the heroes whose deaths Russia deplores 
 were people who thanks to foreign influences, 
 thanks to an idle, unoccupied life became es- 
 tranged from national interests ; but their hearts 
 throbbed afresh on hearing cries for help in accents 
 of agony, and on seeing with their own eyes the 
 appalling miseries of their brethren. The war 
 brings out to daylight the best, the noblest ele- 
 ments of my country. Our armies are appreciated 
 by the whole world. Colonel Brackenbury's elo- 
 quent tribute to the Russian character, published 
 by the Times (December 1st), carries with it such 
 a strong conviction of its absolute accuracy that it 
 cannot be read without producing feelings of sym- 
 
Terms of Peace Possible and Impossible. 59 
 
 pathy and admiration. As a Russian I read and 
 re-read it with deep emotions of gratitude. There 
 is another side of the question, which, although 
 seldom mentioned by the press, deserves the high- 
 est praise I mean the part played in the war by 
 the Russian women. From the highest to the 
 lowest rank, regardless of any social differences, 
 they devote themselves entirely to the relief of the 
 sick and wounded, both on the field of battle and 
 at home. In fact, the Red Cross Society includes 
 in its ranks the whole womanhood of Russia. This 
 spirit of self-sacrifice and devotion is shown even 
 by those who, before the testing moment, appeared 
 to be utterly lost in worldly, frivolous pursuits. 
 
 Yes, this grand war has given a new impulse to 
 Russian life, a deeper feeling of higher missions 
 in this world. Someone said that life was nothing 
 but an examination one had to pass in order to 
 die nobly, and to prove that we did not make a 
 bad use of the greatest privilege given to mortals 
 that of moral liberty. My countrymen and 
 countrywomen are passing their examination splen- 
 didly ; and the Slavs the cause of this new 
 heroism of the whole of Russia have claims 
 
60 Letter IV. 
 
 upon our gratitude as much as upon our sym- 
 pathies! If it had not been for Servia and the 
 Russian volunteers there, the Slavonic world 
 might have waited for its deliverance many, 
 many years more. 
 
 In vain we try to pierce the impervious veil 
 which conceals the future, but we know that our 
 Czar is the very incarnation of his country, and 
 that having often shown a remarkable kind- 
 heartedness, he has also given striking proofs of 
 his firm will in great, decisive moments. The 
 fate of the Christian Slavs is in noble and gene- 
 rous hands. The result of the war no Russian 
 can for one moment doubt. Come what may, the 
 Slavs will be freed. All " possible terms of peace," 
 that do not include the ejection of the Zaptieh and 
 the Pasha, bag and baggage, from the Balkans are 
 manifestly impossible. Deluded and obstinate as 
 the Turk is, he will not go out until he is beaten 
 a plates coutures. 
 
 After the barbarian is swept away the task of 
 reorganising the Government of these lands will 
 be much simplified. It will not be impossible to 
 maintain sufficient order in the province while its 
 
Terms of Peace Possible and Impossible. 61 
 
 inhabitants are gradually acquiring, like the Serbs 
 and Roumans, the habit of self-government. As 
 to Constantinople, even if the fortune of war 
 should compel us to enter that city, we should 
 enter it as the Germans entered Paris, to cele- 
 brate a triumph, not to make an annexation. 
 Our Emperor's word upon this was solemn and 
 conclusive. 
 
 The refusal to believe such an assurance from 
 such a man implies an incapacity to understand 
 the very existence of good faith. Only souls 
 darkened by their own deceit are blind to the 
 rays which stream from the sun of truth. Certain 
 suspicions reflect discredit only upon those who 
 entertain them. The nobler England is above 
 such unworthy distrust. 
 
 Roumania stretches as a barrier between us and 
 the soil of Turkey which we are supposed to covet, 
 and Roumania will not suffer for her alliance with 
 Russia. We have no warmer allies than the fore- 
 most statesmen and scholars of England. Only 
 two or three days ago Sir George Cox, the eminent 
 historian of Greece, urged his countrymen to present 
 an address to the Czar assuring him that in the 
 
62 Letter IV. 
 
 great work of freeing Europe wholly and for ever 
 from the defilement of Turkish rule we heartily 
 wish him and all his people " God speed," and that 
 we wait impatiently for the day when the Russian 
 Emperor shall proclaim the freedom of the 
 Christian subjects of the Sultan in the city of 
 Constantine. There only can the work be con- 
 summated ; and there, by establishing European 
 law, and then withdrawing from the land which he 
 shall have set free, he will have won for himself 
 an undying glory, and, what is of infinitely greater 
 moment, he will have done his duty in the sight of 
 God and man. 
 
 Well, it is a difficult question ! The Guardian, 
 I see, advises us to annex Armenia. Mr Forster 
 and Mr Bryce declared that for the Armenians 
 Russian annexation would be a great change for 
 the better. They received our troops as deliverers, 
 and thousands accompanied them on their retreat 
 into Russian territory. We cannot surrender these 
 poor creatures into the hands of the Turks. What 
 must we do, then ? If we retire the Turk will 
 return, and the last state of Armenia will be 
 worse than the first. Russia is wealthy enough 
 
Terms of Peace Possible and impossible. 63 
 
 in territory, but what are we to do about the 
 Armenians ? This difficulty is not felt by Russians 
 alone, but is shared by Englishmen who have 
 studied the question. One of those whose name 
 stands high in the litera/y world, remarked, the 
 other day : 
 
 "You have captured Kars thrice this century, 
 Why should you give it up ? The Germans did 
 not give up Metz. They did not desire any con- 
 quest, they aimed at no aggrandisement ; but they 
 kept Metz as a safeguard against another war. 
 Suppose you keep Kars, who has any right to 
 complain ? Not the Turks, for the victor has a 
 right to the spoils. As for the other Powers, if 
 they had helped you in your battle they might 
 have claimed to be heard, but not now." 
 
 Then there is Batoum. It is close on our 
 frontier. It is notorious that it is solely due to a 
 misspelling in an old treaty that it is not already 
 ours. Why should we not rectify the clerical 
 mistake of the transcriber ? Batoum is the natural 
 port of Russian Armenia. Its harbour is most fre- 
 quented by Russian ships. It was certainly not 
 worth, while going to war for Batoum or Kars, and 
 
64 Letter IV. 
 
 the Turkish fleet into the bargain. But now that 
 we have had to go to war, is it not a moral duty 
 to make the Turks pay as dearly as possible for 
 the sacrifices which they have cost us ? If we could 
 punish the Turks without annexing any territory I 
 would not annex either Kars or Batoum ; but if 
 that is the only way in which they can be punished, 
 and the Armenians protected, my scruples against 
 annexation may disappear. 
 
 There were many of us in Russia when war was 
 declared who believed that the whole of the 
 campaign would be simply a military promenade. 
 Many said, "We will occupy Constantinople in 
 June or July, and, after dictating in that capital 
 our terms of peace, we will return home with the 
 happy consciousness that we have arranged every- 
 thing to our satisfaction." But now we are in 
 November; we have lost 71,000 men killed and 
 wounded ; we are spending millions and millions 
 for the war, and we are not yet in occupation of 
 Constantinople. The difficulty and costliness of 
 the enterprise render it impossible for Russia to 
 secure any adequate compensation for her sacrifices. 
 We may get some kind of an indemnity using 
 
Terms of Peace Possible and Impossible. 65 
 
 the word to signify a war fine, and it is well to 
 distinguish between a war fine and compensation. 
 We have made great sacrifices, and we may yet 
 have to make still greater should Lord Beacons- 
 field succeed in arraying England against us ; but 
 the liberation of the Slavs is now certain. Between 
 the status quo ante bellum and the present lie too 
 many precious graves for it ever to be restored. 
 Our military promenade has transformed itself 
 into a gigantic burial procession ; but when its end 
 is attained our regret for the brave who have fallen 
 in the fight will be rendered less poignant by the 
 joy with which we shall hail the resurrection of the 
 Southern Slavs. 
 
LETTER V. 
 
 WHY RUSSIANS HATE THE TURKS. 
 
LETTER F. 
 
 WHY RUSSIANS HATE THE TURKS. 
 
 T T THY do the Russians hate the Turks ? 
 
 Because they know them. 
 
 An all-sufficient answer. Our knowledge was 
 not bought without bitter tears. The Tartar wrote 
 his character across our Russia in letters of flame. 
 You English people are not touched with a feeling 
 of the sufferings of the rayahs because you have 
 not been in all points afflicted as they. Russians 
 have. In centuries of anguish they have learned 
 the lesson of sympathy with those who are crushed 
 beneath an Asiatic yoke. We feel for them 
 because we suffered with them. As they are 
 so we were. They are not only our brethren in 
 race and religion, they are also our brothers in 
 misfortune, united to us in "the sacred communion 
 of sorrow." 
 
70 Letter V. 
 
 Many of my English friends know but little 
 about the causes of hereditary hatred of the 
 Russian for the Turk. I venture, therefore, to 
 state briefly the facts which my countrymen can* 
 never forget. 
 
 It is more than six hundred years since first 
 the Russian people fell under the curse of Tartar 
 domination. Before that time the Russians were 
 as free, as prosperous, and as progressive as their 
 neighbours. Serfdom was unknown. The knout, 
 Mr. Tennyson's abomination, was not introduced 
 until two hundred and fifty years after the Tartar 
 conquest. There were Republics in Russia as in 
 Italy, and the Grand Prince had no more power 
 than other sovereigns. But in the middle of the 
 thirteenth century Russia, lying nearest to Asia, 
 experienced a Tartar invasion. An accident of 
 geographical position subjected her to a visitation, 
 from the consequences of which she has freed 
 herself by superhuman struggles. 
 
 It was in 1224 that the Tartars first established 
 themselves as conquerors in South-Eastern Russia. 
 It was not till the close of the sixteenth century 
 that we finally rid ourselves of these troublesome 
 
Why Russians Hate the Turks. 71 
 
 intruders. The Tartar domination, however, did 
 not last much more than two hundred years. 
 It was in 1252 that St. Alexander Nevsky re- 
 ceived the title of Grand Duke from the Tartars. 
 It was not till 1476 that we ceased to pay tribute 
 to our conquerors. But long after Ivan III. had 
 broken the power of the Mongol horde the Tartars 
 spread desolation and death through Russia. As 
 late as 1571, when England, under Elizabeth, had 
 just given birth to a Shakespeare, Moscow was 
 burnt to the ground by a wandering host of 
 Asiatics. 
 
 It is easy to write the words, " invaded by the 
 Tartars ; " but who can realize the " fact " ? West- 
 ern Europe, which felt afar off the scorching of the 
 storm of fire which swept over Russia, throbbed 
 with horror. Kind-hearted St. Louis of France 
 prayed " that the Tartars might be banished to the 
 Tartarus from whence they had come, lest they 
 might depopulate the earth." All the monsters 
 who to you are mere names were to us horrible 
 realities. The Khans, the Begs, whose pyramids 
 of skulls the world still hears with dread, rioted 
 in rapine throughout the whole of Russia. Five 
 
72 Letter V. 
 
 generations of Russians lived and died under the 
 same degrading yoke as that which has crushed 
 the manhood out of the Bulgarians. 
 
 For centuries every strolling Tartar was as 
 absolute master of the life, the property, and the 
 honour of Russians as the Zaptieh is of the lives 
 of the Southern Slavs. To you English people 
 atrocities are things to read of and imagine. To 
 us Russians they are a repetition of horrors with 
 which we have been familiar from childhood. 
 Moscow has twice suffered the fate of Batak, and 
 nearly every city in Russia has suffered the horrors 
 inflicted upon Yeni-Zagra. 
 
 For at least three centuries our national history 
 is little more than a record of the struggle of our 
 race for liberty to live. Our national heroes are 
 the warriors who did battle with the Asiatic 
 intruder, and to this hour in our churches the 
 images of St. Alexander Nevsky fighting the 
 Tartars stir the patriotism and excite the imagi- 
 nation of the youthful Russian. The path of 
 liberty was steep and thorny. Again and again 
 our efforts were baffled. A town revolted, and it 
 was consumed. Bands of armed peasants who 
 
Why Russians Ha+e the Turks. 73 
 
 resisted the Tartars were from time to time 
 massacred to a man. But the Russian nation did 
 not despair. As your own Byron sang Byron, 
 who gave his life to the cause for which thousands 
 of my countrymen are giving theirs to-day 
 
 " Freedom's battle, once begun, 
 Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son, 
 Though baffled oft, is ever won." 
 
 Gradually Russia shook off the yoke of her op- 
 pressors. Her advance resembled that of Servia 
 and Roumania. After having enjoyed adminis- 
 trative autonomy she secured her position as a 
 tributary State, and then at last, waxing strong 
 with freedom, she burst the chains with which she 
 had been so long bound. 
 
 Russia was free from the Asiatic oppressor, but 
 the evil results of his domination remained. Mr. 
 Gladstone, in one of his grandest speeches on the 
 Eastern Question, explained the comparatively low 
 intellectual condition of the Southern Slavs by 
 referring to the sandy barrier which, while pro- 
 ducing nothing valuable itself, nevertheless keeps 
 the destroying wave from encroaching upon the 
 fertile land. What the Southern Slavs did South 
 
74 Letter V. 
 
 Russia did for Northern Europe. Upon us the 
 Asiatic wave spent its force. We were overwhelmed. 
 But we saved Europe from the Mongol horde. 
 
 While we saved we suffered ; we emerged from 
 
 the flood of barbarism ourselves partially barbarous. 
 
 Our progress had been arrested for centuries. All 
 
 our national energies had been diverted into the 
 
 struggle against our conquerors. What had once 
 
 been flourishing towns were blackened ruins. 
 
 Liberty itself disappeared for a time. To fight 
 
 the Tartar all power was centred in the hand of 
 
 one ruler. Serfdom was amongst the legacies of 
 
 Tartar domination. While the rest of the world 
 
 had advanced, Russia had even been forced back. 
 
 It was a terrible visitation, but it left behind it 
 
 at least one benefit. But for the tortures of these 
 
 sad centuries, the Russian people might have been 
 
 as indifferent as the French and the English to 
 
 the cries of those who are still under the power of 
 
 ( the Pashas. But for the sympathy of the Russian 
 
 j people Chefket Pasha and Achmet Aga might 
 
 C have ruled for ever in Bosnia and Bulgaria. The 
 
 / Tartars prevented that. They taught the Russian 
 
 \ people what the rule of the Asiatic is, a dreadful 
 
Why Russians Hate the Turks. 75 
 i 
 
 lesson, creating that inextinguishable hatred of the 
 Turk which will ultimately secure his ejection from 
 Europe. The death-warrant of the Ottoman was 
 signed by Timour the Tartar. 
 
LETTER VI. 
 
 SOME ENGLISH PREJUDICES. 
 
LETTER VL 
 
 SOME ENGLISH PREJUDICES. 
 
 A LAS ! poor Russians ! we seem to have no 
 **' chance, no chance whatever, of obtaining 
 justice among the English in England. No sooner 
 do we flatter ourselves that at last we have met 
 with a friend with at least one person who has the 
 courage not to accept as gospel all that is alleged 
 against us without positive evidence, not to regard 
 separate cases as general absolute truths than a 
 rude rebuff recalls us to the region of unpleasant 
 but actual fact, and an act of pure unmistakeable 
 hostility dissipates in a moment the pleasing illusion 
 that at last we had found someone to understand 
 us. Why is it that so many English people hate 
 us ? There must be some strange subtle antipathy 
 which baffles analysis, just as there is an equally 
 strange sympathy which wins for the Turk, in spite 
 
8o Letter VI. 
 
 of his revolting misdeeds, the affection of English- 
 men. 
 
 Why can it be ? Fear can surely have no share 
 in the production of so persistent an animosity, so 
 inveterate a prejudice ! The menace to your Indian 
 realm exists only in the imagination of those who 
 fancy that it is but a stone's throw from the banks 
 of the Oxus to the southern slopes of the Himalayas. 
 In Russia we cannot understand why Englishmen 
 should pay us the exaggerated compliment of per- 
 mitting a dread of Russian power to colour all the 
 speeches of your Conservative politicians, and to 
 bias the policy of your Ministry. We know too 
 much of the power of England to accept such a 
 compliment as quite au serieux. It is to us just a 
 little too absurd. We see that England annexes 
 new territories every year with a facility which 
 betrays to foreigners little evidence of reluctance 
 on her part to extend the boundaries of her Empire. 
 We know that she is all-powerful at sea, and able 
 to command everything that money can procure 
 on the land at a moment's notice. Russia, on the 
 other hand, is not wealthy. She is only morally 
 rich in the consciousness that she is performing her 
 
Some English Prejudices. 81 
 
 duty, and moral wealth according to old-fashioned 
 Russian views is not altogether to be despised. 
 But that moral wealth can neither threaten India 
 nor annex Great Britain. Why, then, this irrational 
 panic, which haunts the imagination of what used 
 to be the most self-confident, self-reliant, and fear- 
 less race in the world ? If I were an Englishman 
 I should blush for shame if I entertained the coward 
 fear of any Power on earth. 
 
 It is impossible to believe that fears so groundles c 
 can really occasion all the hostility with which my 
 country is regarded by many Englishmen. If it is 
 not fear, to what unknown source, then, can we 
 trace the origin of Russophobia ? To poor simple- 
 minded Russians it may seem a hopeless task to 
 undertake such an inquiry. As incomprehensible 
 in its origin as it is illogical in its manifestation, 
 they are content to dismiss it with that phrase 
 which has served as a refuge to so many baffled 
 inquirers " There are more things in heaven and 
 earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philoso- 
 phy." But perhaps I may be pardoned if I suggest 
 that ignorance, pure, sheer, downright ignorance, 
 
 has not a little to do with it. 
 
 6 
 
82 Letter VI. 
 
 Let me give an instance of this ignorance in 
 places where it might least be expected to exist. 
 The other day a friend mentioned, in the course 
 of conversation, that your great English poet, Mr. 
 Tennyson, hated Russia. 
 
 " Indeed," said I ; " that is most unfortunate. 
 But can you tell me why ? " 
 
 "Oh," was the response, "we English people, 
 you know, cannot tolerate your knout system ! " 
 
 11 How good of you ! " I exclaimed ; " upon this 
 we perfectly agree. But tell me, why should your 
 Laureate live only in the past and take no notice 
 of the present ? Poets are not confined to the con- 
 templation of the past ; the future itself is some- 
 times disclosed to their ken." 
 
 With a puzzled look and hesitating accent, he 
 observed, " But you do not mean to say that the 
 knout is a thing of the past, not of the present ? " 
 
 "That is exactly what I do mean to say," I 
 answered. " If I wish to stick to facts I can say 
 nothing else. The knout has ceased to exist in 
 Russia. Even in the navy," I added, "which per- 
 haps is also the case with the cat-o'-nine-tails in 
 the navy of England ! Is it not so ? " 
 
Some English Prejudices. 83 
 
 Without answering my question, my friend said, 
 " Since when ? " 
 
 " Shortly after the emancipation of the serfs/' 
 said I. "Russia is a long way off; but is fifteen 
 years not long enough for such a reform to reach 
 the ears of England's Laureate ? " 
 
 We may be " barbarians," but our criminal code, 
 judged by the standard of thte Howard Association, 
 is more humane than that of at least one other 
 nation which retains the lash in the marine, applies 
 the cat-o'-nine-tails to the garotter, and secretly 
 strangles murderers in the recesses of her gaols. 
 
 Well, perhaps that does not improve matters. 
 Is ignorance not invincible ? Does not Schiller say 
 " against stupidity the gods themselves contend 
 in vain " ? If Englishmen, fifteen years after the 
 knout has disappeared from Russia, persist in de- 
 nouncing Russians for using the knout, what can 
 we hope ? And here again we Russians labour at 
 a great disadvantage. We shrink from the task of 
 vindicating ourselves even from the most unjust 
 reproaches. Some accusations appear to us so in- 
 conceivably absurd that we cannot understand how 
 any answer can be required. 
 
84 Letter VI. 
 
 Let me illustrate this. Last year a curious 
 collection of calumnies against Russia was anony- 
 mously published in England. My English friends, 
 to whose judgment I attach the greatest importance, 
 were anxious that it should be refuted. I applied, 
 and applied in vain, to one after another of my 
 literary friends in Russia to undertake such a task. 
 " How can you ask such a thing ! No Russian 
 with any self-respect could stoop to notice such 
 monstrous libels. Your beloved England is 
 evidently demoralising you, or you would never 
 pay attention to such attacks." Is it either right 
 or generous to declare that because no reply is 
 made no reply can be made ? The Golos last 
 year published a long and circumstantial story of 
 the way in which Lord Beaconsfield abused his 
 position as Premier to influence the Money Market. 
 Nobody in England dreamed of categorically 
 refuting it. They regarded the calumny as beneath 
 contempt. Has not a Russian as much right to 
 silence when accused as Lord Beaconsneld ? 
 
 I am the more disposed to attribute this strange 
 antipathy to ignorance, because those Englishmen 
 who really know us are among the best friends we 
 
Some English Prejudices. 85 
 
 have. If there were really some secret antipathy 
 between the nations this would not be so. In 
 cases of mutual repulsion the repulsion is most 
 marked when the two objects approach. But 
 English residents in Russia rarely manifest ir- 
 rational antipathy which is so strongly shown on 
 the banks of the Thames. 
 
 Examples of an exactly opposite feeling are 
 present to our memory such, for instance, as the 
 warm-hearted letters which appeared in the Daily 
 News and the Times last year, from well known 
 English residents in Moscow ; and, frankly speak- 
 ing, I think they are only paying us with our own 
 coin. Although the English Turkophile press 
 delights to represent us as evil spirits, Russians 
 who come to England are so kindly treated that 
 they always want to come again. 
 
 I am aware that the mistake is often made of 
 attaching too much importance to what is said 
 in certain clubs or coteries in London, or by 
 journals which notoriously speak under official or 
 foreign influences. I have lived long enough in 
 England to discover that public opinion is a force 
 which may exist independently of the political 
 
86 Letter VI. 
 
 society of the capital, or of a particular political 
 party in the country. It is certain that among 
 large classes of the English people in Birmingham^ 
 Manchester, Edinburgh, and other great centres 
 there is a wide-spread conviction that Turkish 
 misgovernment must no longer be supported by 
 British bayonets ; and that Russia is entitled to 
 the moral sympathy of mankind in her efforts to 
 liberate the oppressed Christians. While journals 
 like the Times, the Daily News, the Echo, the 
 Spectator, and the Examiner (many others might 
 be mentioned) show that in London a strong feel- 
 ing exists in favour of acting fairly to Russia, in 
 the provinces and in Scotland the most widely 
 circulated journals have resolutely opposed the 
 Beaconsfield policy.* 
 
 The evidence of war correspondents of the 
 
 * I am anxious to mention the fact that the Northern Echo of 
 Darlington is greatly appreciated and admired in Russia for the 
 energetic, constant sympathy it has shown to the Slavonic cause. 
 Long passages from its leading articles have been quoted both by 
 M. KatkofFs Moscow Gazette and M. Guilaroft's Contemporary 
 News. The above-mentioned gentlemen are proprietors and editors 
 at the same time, as is almost always the case in Russian news- 
 papers. 
 
Some English Prejudices. 87 
 
 English press is not without some little weight 
 Colonel Brackenbury, Mr. M'Gahan, Mr. Forbes, 
 Sir Henry Havelock, Mr. Boyle, and others, less 
 well-known, made the acquaintance of Russians in 
 Roumania and Bulgaria under circumstances which 
 render concealment of realities impossible. I de- 
 sire no better verdict for my countrymen than 
 that pronounced by those witnesses selected at 
 random, although some were hostile and others did 
 spare their reproaches against what they believed 
 to be wrong for, after all, we cannot be vexed 
 with people, although they do not arrive at exactly 
 the right result, if they honestly do their best. 
 
 After the knout, Russia is most abused for her 
 treatment of her subject races, and with as little 
 reason. We have, for instance, many Moham- 
 medan subjects. They are not oppressed, or 
 persecuted. They have all the liberty enjoyed 
 by the Mohammedans in Turkey, except the 
 liberty of oppressing their Christian neighbours 
 They certainly enjoy a far better Government than 
 their co-religionists in Asia Minor. In the Baltic 
 Provinces there are many local municipal institu- 
 tions ; and no race has less reason to complain 
 
88 Letter VI. 
 
 of ill-treatment than the Germans, who enjoy so 
 large a share of the administration of the Empire. 
 It is a characteristic of Russia that we open even 
 the highest branches of our service to all our sub- 
 ject races an example which England, I think, 
 does not follow in India. General MelikofF and 
 General Lazareff, who have covered themselves 
 with glory in Armenia, are both Armenians. 
 Todleben and Heimann are Germans of the Baltic 
 Provinces. Nepokoitschitzky is a Pole, as also is 
 Levitsky. 
 
 " Ah, Poland ! " you exclaim. Of course it is 
 in vain for a Russian to appeal for a hearing of 
 his defence about the Poles, even to those who 
 deny Home Rule to the Irish. Sometime I may 
 say something of Russian rule in Poland, but I 
 content myself with saying that Poland would 
 have had a Constitution of its own for the last 
 fourteen years if the Poles would have been 
 content with the boundaries of the kingdom of 
 Poland. But when they insisted, even at the 
 sword's point, that we should give Home Rule 
 not only to Poland but almost to half Russia, 
 which they claimed to be theirs, then a reaction 
 
Some English Prejudices. 89 
 
 set in, and the reforms which the Grand Duke 
 Constantine went to Warsaw with such high hopes 
 to establish remained a dead letter. 
 
 Constitutions are not unknown in Russia, nor is 
 it beyond the boundaries of Russian policy to 
 grant Home Rule to its subject provinces. Those 
 who think so should go to Finland. In that impor- 
 tant maritime province they would find the Finns 
 in possession of a very large measure of admin- 
 istrative independence. The Russian language 
 is not employed in Finnish Courts or in Finnish 
 official documents. The Lutheran, and not the 
 Russian Orthodox Church, is the established 
 religion of Finland. Nay, even the Russian 
 rouble will not circulate in that Russian province 
 which lies almost at the gates of the Russian 
 capital. Finland has its own laws, its own legis- 
 lature, its own Church, its own coinage, its own 
 language, its own budget, and its own national 
 debt. 
 
 Nor does the recognition of local independence 
 destroy the loyalty of our Finns. During this war 
 their enthusiasm has been very great, although 
 they are connected neither by race nor religion 
 
go Letter VI. 
 
 with the Southern Slavs. There is no conscription 
 in Finland. Its system of raising soldiers is the 
 same as the English. A few weeks ago a call 
 was made for volunteers in one district in Finland. 
 In three days the list was more than filled by 
 gallant men who were eager to be led to the 
 liberation of Bulgaria. That they knew it was no 
 holiday work upon which they had entered was 
 shown by one grim little fact. Every volunteer 
 before joining the ranks provided himself with 
 a dagger, in order that he might have the means 
 of saving himself by a swift death-stroke from the 
 mutilation and torture that awaits the wounded 
 who fall into the hands of the Turks ! Have we 
 not reason to be proud of men who go out joyfully 
 to risk their lives in such a war ? 
 
 It is difficult to convince those who are not 
 familiar with Russia how willingly the whole popu- 
 lation of my country will surrender all that they 
 have, even life itself if it be required by the Czar, 
 in order to carry on the war which he has under- 
 taken for the oppressed Slavs. The declaration in 
 the petitions which flowed in to the Czar after the 
 Moscow address " We place our fortunes and our 
 
Some English Prejudices. 91 
 
 lives at thy disposal " was no meaningless phrase. 
 The records of Russia's history prove that it is a 
 simple statement of a fact. 
 
 The calculating, sceptical, selfish part of Europe 
 may look upon the addresses and petitions to 
 the Czar merely as a species of new-fashioned 
 eloquence. But in burning, decisive, historical 
 moments such Russian words have always been 
 synonymous with deeds. An offer of "life and 
 fortune " can only be voluntary. We Russians are 
 sometimes prevented from having this will cate- 
 gorically expressed and carried out ; but after we 
 have almost implored to be allowed to sacrifice 
 them in a holy cause we never fear to be taken at 
 our word we never shrink from its consequences. 
 The mighty voice of the Russian people has never 
 been heard in vain. 
 
 Permit me to recall one instance alone out of 
 numbers which might be mentioned to illustrate 
 this characteristic of my countrymen. In the time 
 of Peter the Great, whilst Russia was fighting, not 
 for the tortured Slavs, not for her persecuted co- 
 religionists, but merely for the possession of the 
 Baltic Provinces a question of comparatively small 
 
92 Letter VL 
 
 moment to the Russian people the Czar sent an 
 ukase to the Senate fixing new taxes upon salt- 
 No sooner was the Imperial decree read than 
 Prince Jacob Dolgorouky sprang from his chair, 
 and in the presence of a numerous assemblage, to 
 the bewilderment of everyone, tore it to pieces. 
 
 " Emperor ! " exclaimed he, with a trembling 
 voice, " you want money ? We understand it ! 
 But why should the poor suffer and pay for it ? 
 Have you no wealthy nobility to dispose of? 
 Prince Menshikoff may build a ship at his private 
 expense, Apraxine another one, and I will certainly 
 not remain behind my countrymen ! " 
 
 Such was the spirit displayed by the Russians 
 in those days, and since the time of Peter the Great 
 Russians have not degenerated. 
 
LETTER VII. 
 TRADITIONAL POLICY. 
 
LETTER VII. 
 
 TRADITIONAL POLICY. 
 
 " "I T 7E must support the Turk, for it is our tra- 
 ditional policy," is the motto of England. 
 No, not of England, but of many Englishmen 
 The tradition, however, does not go very far back 
 not much farther, in fact, than the Crimean 
 war a war, the wisdom of which many of its 
 authors now seriously doubt. 
 
 But I will not raise that question now. Grant 
 it if you will that the Pasha and the Bashi-Bazouk 
 are the traditional allies of free England. Must 
 what has been always continue ? Must the past 
 bind for ever both the present and the future ? 
 The history of every nation is nothing but the 
 changes in its traditional, internal, and external 
 policy. 
 
96 Letter VII. 
 
 This persistency in the " traditional policy " re- 
 minds one of an incident in the reforming labours 
 of Peter the Great. The genuine Russians, in his 
 time, believed firmly in the wisdom of their an- 
 cestors. They walked in the old ways. The new 
 was to them the profane. The old was holy. 
 The reformer was the blasphemer, and few inci- 
 dents in our history are more interesting than the 
 attempt of the great Czar to civilize his subjects. 
 
 This task was almost too great, even for such a 
 Titan as he. The inert conservatism of the masses 
 would have baffled the strength of a Hercules. 
 It was only by main force that he could compel 
 ,his unwilling subjects to forsake the old ruts. 
 Before he came to the throne, Archangel, far away 
 in the frozen sea, was Russia's only port. Peter, 
 with his ready sword, hewed his way to the Baltic, 
 and the sea was gained. St. Petersburg was 
 founded. But nothing was sent for shipment. 
 The traders, disdaining to turn aside at St. Peters- 
 burg, continued to send their goods for shipment 
 to Archangel. It was the traditional policy of 
 their ancestors. 
 
 The Czar remonstrated with his subject-mer- 
 
Some English Prejudices. 97 
 
 chants. But as they had always gone to Arch- 
 angel, they would always go to Archangel. Upon 
 this Peter issued his positive order that the port 
 should be closed altogether, and only by that 
 means the trade took the nearer route. The past 
 is full of illustrations of the necessity for deviating 
 from the old lines of established custom, but the 
 above incident is curious because it is an instance 
 of a literal adhesion to an old road. It has many 
 counterparts in politics. For instance, the change 
 in England's traditional policy was effected by the 
 forcible interference of a " Czar Peter " in the 
 shape of the autumn agitation of 1876, but for 
 which England might now have been at war with 
 us against the cause of freedom in the East. 
 
 Policies must be adjusted to facts, not facts to 
 policies. No rule of conduct can be immutable. 
 The wisdom of yesterday is often the folly of to- 
 day. To be truly consistent as to one's object, 
 one must often be completely inconsistent as to 
 the means. 
 
 The truth is not a paradox. It is a truism of 
 politics. Two or three years ago a clerical mem- 
 ber of the Prussian Herrenhaus attempted to over- 
 
98 Letter VII. 
 
 whelm the German Chancellor by quoting at great 
 length from a speech delivered by M. Bismarck 
 some twenty years previously, in which he vehe- 
 mently attacked the policy he had subsequently 
 adopted as his own. 
 
 Nothing daunted by hearing the recent policy of 
 his Government denounced so vehemently from 
 the tribune in extracts selected from his former 
 speech, Prince Bismarck listened attentively, and 
 with a slight smile upon his strongly-marked 
 features. When his assailant, with an air of 
 triumph, had resumed his seat, Prince Bismarck 
 said, "I have listened attentively to the speech 
 which I delivered twenty years ago. I heard it 
 with pleasure, and I am delighted to see that 
 twenty years ago I understood the situation so 
 well. At the present moment it would be all 
 wrong, but then it was exactly what was needed. 
 It is impossible now to secure the safety of the 
 State except by departing from the tradition of 
 that time." 
 
 Other statesmen have shown even less anxiety 
 to justify the change of policy forced upon them 
 by altered circumstances. The Duke of Welling- 
 
Some English Prejudices. 99 
 
 ton, when on one occasion he was challenged in 
 the House of Lords with an apparent inconsist- 
 ency, simply replied, with charming frankness, " I 
 have changed my mind ! " 
 
 The other day I saw at Mr. Theed's, the eminent 
 sculptor, two splendid statues of the Right Hon. 
 C. P. Villiers, M.R, which are to be erected at 
 Manchester and Wolverhampton. Here was an- 
 other instance of a change of policy, not by an 
 individual, but by a whole nation. For thirteen 
 years Mr. Villiers contended bravely in the House 
 of Commons for the abolition of the Corn Laws 
 He fought for the abandonment of the traditional 
 
 o 
 
 policy of Great Britain in matters of trade, regard- 
 ing with disdain the abusive attacks of a powerful 
 majority. The nation was against him at first 
 but the cause of right triumphed, the change was 
 made, and, even in his lifetime, he is awarded the 
 rare distinction of having statues erected in his 
 honour by his grateful fellow-countrymen. 
 
 Every reform is more or less of a protest against 
 the policy bequeathed to us by our ancestors a 
 revolt against the established traditions of the 
 past. When the reform is accomplished men 
 
ioo Letter VII. 
 
 marvel at the opposition which it encountered. 
 Of numberless instances take a case which was 
 mentioned to me the other day, when we were 
 talking of the universal satisfaction with which the 
 abolition of the Concordat was regarded in Austro- 
 Hungary. When the Council of the Vatican pro- 
 claimed the infallibility of the Holy Father the 
 enunciation of that dogma effected a change in the 
 relation between the Papacy and the Courts of 
 Europe. Count Beust, at that time Chancellor of 
 Austro-Hungary, recognised, with the keen percep- 
 tion of a statesman, that the time had come for 
 breaking with the traditional policy of the past. 
 Count Beust abolished the Concordat, and boldly 
 initiated the new policy which the occasion required. 
 There is a significance about that last fact which 
 should not be lost. The Sultan has not pro- 
 claimed in set terms the dogma of his infallibility, 
 but he has done worse. At the Conference at 
 
 i 
 
 Constantinople he asserted, for the first time for 
 k many years, his deliberate determination to defy 
 the councils of all the Powers. Unanimously they 
 urged him to accept the irreducible minima, and 
 pertinaciously he refused. That refusal in itself 
 
Some. English Prejudices. 101 
 
 changed the whole situation. It was the Mussul 
 man counterpart to the decree of the Vatican an 
 act of defiance to Europe and to civilisation. To 
 some extent the English Government has recog- 
 nised the impossibility of carrying out the old 
 policy under such new conditions ; but, unlike 
 Count Beust, they have not boldly broken with 
 the past, and annulled the unwritten Concordat 
 which bound England to the Turk. 
 
 The reasons which led England to fight Russia 
 in 1854 no longer exist. The whole situation is 
 transformed. Is it not necessary to abandon the 
 mistaken attempts to secure the peace of Europe 
 by maintaining a government always and unavoid- 
 ably at war with its own subjects ? Peace^said 
 Lord Derby, is the greatest of British interests. 
 Why sacrifice it then by maintaining so obstinately 
 a policy which has become an anachronism ? Can 
 you quick-moving Westerns, who invent the loco- 
 motive and talk by the telephone, be so absorbed 
 in the trivial details of each day's business as to 
 ignore two of the greatest facts of modern history ? 
 What are these facts ? The first is the evident 
 progress of Russia under our present Czar. The 
 
102 Letter VII. 
 
 > second is the establishment of the German Empire. 
 By the first Russia gained new claims upon the 
 sympathies of the civilised world. The second 
 saved the Continent from the dread of the absolute 
 predominance of Russia. The Turk is the only 
 unprogressive Power left in Europe, and Turkish 
 oppression is a worse menace to peace than " Rus- 
 sian aggression." 
 
 The Sick Man is sick unto death. England has 
 tried to galvanise him into life ; but the task ex- 
 ceeds even the resources of English wealth. And 
 yet there are some who say, " Let him have one 
 more chance ! " But what is the meaning of this 
 phrase ? What can be the relations between the 
 Turks and the Christians after the events of the 
 last two years ? But it is possible that the Turk 
 may be spared. English diplomatic influence may 
 succeed in maintaining the Turkish Empire against 
 the determination of the whole of Russia. If so, 
 while apparently adhering to the traditional policy 
 of England, Lord Beaconsfield will have sacrificed 
 the object for which that policy was invented, viz., 
 the maintenance of a Power at Constantinople 
 strong enough to keep peace in the East. 
 
LETTER VIII. 
 RUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
LETTER VIII. 
 
 RUSSIANS IN CENTRAL ASIA. 
 
 " r I ^HE Russians have as much right to conquer 
 "* Central Asia as the English to seize India," 
 observed a polite Englishman, the other day, evi- 
 dently thinking that he had gone to the extreme 
 of condescending kindness ! 
 
 " May I be quite frank ? " said I. " Well, it 
 seems to me that we have a great deal better 
 right in Central Asia than you have in India ! " 
 So startling a remark led to a long explanation- 
 Perhaps Russian views on that point might be of 
 some little interest in England. I scarcely hope to 
 convince many of my readers, but I think it really 
 is a duty to speak out one's mind sometimes, even 
 when you feel yourself nothing but a poor ex- 
 ponent of the cause of truth. Consider me as a 
 pis-aller. I don't mind. Personal considerations 
 must be put aside under certain circumstances. 
 
ic6 Letter VIII. 
 
 Well, now, as to the question of Central Asia. 
 Turkestan is at our door. Neither precipitous 
 mountain range nor stormy sea divided the Rus- 
 sian plain from trie Tartar steppe. Our merchants 
 have always traded with the Khanates ; caravans 
 have wended their way wearily over the mono- 
 tonous expanse of the Central Asian desert for 
 centuries. Every disturbance in Turkestan affected 
 business in Russia. It became a necessity for 
 the protection of the legitimate channels of com- 
 merce to establish some authority in these regions 
 more respectable than the nomadic tribes who 
 levied black mail with a threat of death. Step 
 by step in the course of successive generations, 
 the Russian civiliser encroached upon the Tartar 
 savage. Evils tolerable at a distance are intoler- 
 able next door. Anarchy, objectionable anywhere, 
 is unbearable when it infringes upon the frontiers 
 of order. The extension of our sovereignty over 
 the tribes of Tartary was the unavoidable conse- 
 quence of our geographical position. Now : Was 
 it so with you in India ? You had to pass the 
 Cape of Good Hope, and sail half round the 
 world before you reached the land which you have 
 
Russians in Central Asia. 107 
 
 subdued. The internal tranquillity of India had 
 no bearing upon English interests. So you had 
 at first no more right to conquer Hindostan than 
 Russia has to annex Brazil. 
 
 Russia in Central Asia is without a rival as she 
 is without an ally. If she did not establish order, 
 toleration, and peace among those rude tribes on 
 her frontiers the work would have remained un- 
 done to this day. In India, on the contrary, you 
 have to justify your conquest not only against the 
 reproaches of the conquered nations, but against 
 the protests of the Dutch, the Portuguese, and the 
 French, whom you ejected from the dominions which 
 you had marked for your own. Russia in Central 
 Asia does the police work of an enormous expanse 
 of thinly-populated, poverty-stricken land. She 
 taxes the peasants of SaratofF and Kieff to maintain 
 order in Khokand and Tashkent. The Administra- 
 tion spends two roubles in collecting one. The 
 English people, I think, pay nothing for the govern- 
 ment of India. The Hindoos had to pay the expense 
 of their conquest, and they defray at this moment 
 the whole charges of the foreign administration 
 which is maintained in India by English bayonets. 
 
108 Letter VIII. 
 
 India is rich. Central Asia is poor. The whole 
 of the revenue raised in Turkestan is not half a 
 million in the year. In India you raise more than 
 fifty millions. 
 
 There was little to plunder in Tashkent much 
 less than the English nabobs found in one of the 
 great cities of Northern India. 
 
 There was more need for Russians in Central 
 Asia than there was for Englishmen in Bengal. 
 The Tartar of the steppe needs a policeman much 
 more than the timid Bengaleee. India had a 
 civilization of her own, the splendour of which is 
 attested to this day by those architectural remains 
 to which Mr. Fergusson has devoted such patient 
 genius and so many years of unremitting toil. 
 The Khanates were hotbeds of savagery and 
 fanaticism. The condition of these Tartar States 
 was unspeakably bad. Arminius Vambery is one 
 of the greatest Russian-haters in the world, but he 
 admits that our soldiers have made it possible for 
 Europeans to live in Bokhara. Formerly, Vambery 
 himself could only visit the city disguised as a 
 Mohammedan. Mr. Schuyler says : " The rule of 
 Russia is on the whole beneficial to the natives, 
 
Russians in Central Asia. 109 
 
 and it would be manifestly unjust to them to with- 
 draw her protection and leave them to anarchy 
 and to the unbridled rule of fanatical despots." 
 
 We do not grudge England her Indian Empire, 
 but when we are reproached with territorial greed 
 for having annexed some deserts close to our fron- 
 tiers we have a right to ask England to look to 
 herself. India is yours, and improved by your 
 rule. May it remain yours for ever ! But the 
 happy possessors of that magnificent Empire 
 should not reproach us for our poor Tartar steppes. 
 To understand the difficulties of our position in 
 Central Asia, look not to India, but to your West 
 African Settlements. You hold territories there 
 which do not pay their expenses ; they involve 
 occasional wars which you wisely undertake with- 
 out humbly asking the benediction of Russia or 
 any other Power. Nevertheless you do not give 
 them up ; you even extend them from time to 
 time without asking for our leave. Your keeping 
 these provinces is perhaps more generous than 
 giving them up, but there are Russians cruel 
 enough to read with a little smile of your troubles 
 with the King of Ashantee when they remember 
 
no Letter VIII. 
 
 with what admirable fortitude you bore our diffi- 
 culties with the Khan of Khiva. 
 
 In Central Asia Russians suppress the slave- 
 trade as you do on the African coast, although at 
 the first your views upon the subject were less 
 philanthropic if I remember well. Wherever the 
 Russian flag flies freedom to the slave is guaranteed. 
 If England had but joined us in our crusade against 
 the Turk, the last stronghold of the slave-trade in 
 Europe would have already ceased to exist. Eng- 
 lish people have no right to ignore this phase of the 
 question when they can refer to such an unimpeach- 
 able " Statement of Facts on Turkey and the Slave 
 Trade" as that written by Mr. F. W. Chesson, 
 whose name is familiar to everyone as the ener- 
 getic and fearless defender of the oppressed. One 
 of the numerous complaints against us Russians is 
 that we do not open the markets of Central Asia to 
 the manufactures of all the world. Were you free- 
 traders when you first conquered India ? The 
 East India Company, I believe, held as strict a 
 monopoly as ever existed in the world. 
 
 About the wretched Khivan business, on which 
 everybody, especially the most ignorant, feels 
 
Russians in Central Asia. 1 1 1 
 
 himself competent to speak with authority, permit 
 me to state categorically a few facts. We pro- 
 mised (I really do not know why) not to annex 
 that questionable paradise, and we have not broken 
 our pledge. The Khan reigns in all his glory in 
 Khiva at this hour. But promises of that kind, as 
 English experience goes, cannot always be kept as 
 faithfully as we have kept ours. The illustrious 
 Burke, in the House of Commons in 1783, said 
 that " from Mount Imaus to Cape Comorin there 
 is not a single prince or State with which the 
 English Government had come into contact which 
 they had not sold. There was not a single treaty 
 which they ever made with a native State or prince 
 which they had not broken." But we admit, in 
 spite of Burke's severe blame, that, though pro- 
 bably only yielding to the necessity of her position, 
 England, at all events, has given to India the 
 blessings of a civilised and stable Government. Is 
 Russia not entitled to the same amount of credit ? 
 Even Lord Beaconsfield views with no mistrust 
 the advance of Russia in Asia that is, if you can 
 believe what he said not so very long ago from 
 his place in Parliament where, I suppose, he 
 
1 1 2 Letter VIII. 
 
 speaks with more precision than after dinner at 
 the Guildhall* The Premier used the following 
 words which I quote the more gladly because it 
 is so seldom that I can appeal to his testimony : 
 " I think that Asia is large enough for the destinies 
 of Russia and England. Far from looking forward 
 with alarm to the development of Russia in Central 
 Asia, I see no reason why they should not conquer 
 Tartary any more than why England should not 
 have conquered India." 
 
 Why should English Turkophiles out-Herod 
 Herod ? 
 
 * I have read somewhere that in an ecclesiastical trial 
 before the Privy Council, an advocate, wishing to fix a parti- 
 cular meaning upon an incriminated passage, said : " Either 
 that is the meaning of the passage, my lords, or it has no 
 meaning at all." " I am no theologian," replied the Lord 
 Justice, "but is it not possible that the passage may have 
 no meaning at all?" So I would say to those who try to 
 find out the meaning of Lord Beaconsfield's speeches ; but I 
 come to that conclusion only because of my frequent visits to 
 England. Foreigners are not always able to understand the 
 difference between the real and the apparent value of the 
 speeches of English statesmen. 
 
LETTER IX. 
 
 MR. FORBES' ARTICLE. 
 
LETTER IX. 
 
 v 
 
 MR. FORBES' ARTICLE. 
 
 \The article contributed by Mr. Forbes to the "Nineteenth 
 Century" on " Russians, Turks, and Bulgarians, at 
 the Seat of War? occasioned so much controversy, 
 that a Russian view of the question may, perhaps, 
 not be considered as out of place. \ 
 
 IGHT, more light ! " murmured Goethe on 
 l ** - ' his deathbed. We Russians are in more 
 urgent need of light in order to live. M. Aksakoff 
 last month said, " Light ! light ! as much light 
 as possible that is what Russia now requires. 
 In light are health, force, power, and the possi- 
 bility of recovery." That light, he said, comes to 
 us chiefly from abroad, and we owe most of it 
 to two English correspondents Mr. M'Gahan and 
 Mr. Forbes. In the name of the whole Russian 
 
Il6 Letter IX. 
 
 people, which even in its remotest villages has 
 read and re-read their letters, M. Aksakoff thanked 
 these Englishmen, not only for their sympathy, 
 but still more for " the calm, bitter truths " which 
 they had spoken. 
 
 Since M. Aksakoff spoke Mr. Forbes has pub- 
 lished an article in the Nineteenth Century. He 
 praises my countrymen, and I thank him for 
 doing them justice. He criticises their adminis- 
 tration, and I thank him still more for his can- 
 dour in assisting us to remedy our short-comings. 
 He severely condemns some of our military com- 
 manders, and, if true, these things cannot be too 
 plainly exposed. We are not infallible, we 
 Russians, as is the Holy Father, whose infallibility, 
 however, has not prevented him from sympathiz- 
 ing with the infidels against whom his no less 
 infallible predecessors preached crusades. Like 
 other nations, we make mistakes, and no one can 
 do us better service than by pointing them out. 
 Mr. Forbes might have spared us a few sneers ; 
 but these we can overlook. As a Russian I do 
 not complain. 
 
 But as a Slav I protest against the way in 
 
Mr. Forbes* Article. 117 
 
 which he abuses the Bulgarians, I am indignant 
 at these virulent attacks upon the feeble and 
 those who have no helper. Better far better 
 that he should denounce us and spare them. We, 
 at least, are strong, but they, the weak, the 
 wretched, the oppressed is it manly to heap 
 insults upon such as these ? They cannot reply. 
 They cannot resent his abuse, no matter how 
 undeserved. And it is undeserved! Mr. Forbes 
 has never been for a single day in Bulgaria under 
 Turkish rule. He has only seen Bulgarians after 
 the Pasha, the Zaptieh, the Tcherkess, and the 
 Bashi-Bazouk had fled " bag and baggage " before 
 our liberating army. How is he to know what 
 they suffered ? Mr. M'Gahan, who visited Bul- 
 garia when the Turk was in possession, gives a 
 very different account of the happiness of the 
 Bulgarian. Mr. Forbes has never been across 
 the Balkans. He has never been near the scene 
 of the atrocities. But he admits that the Turks 
 are " persistent, indomitable barbarians," He says 
 they "wield the axe and the chopper of ruthless 
 savages," that they mutilate the dead and torture 
 the wounded. The Bulgarians are at the mercy 
 
Ii8 Letter IX. 
 
 of these men. Unless they become renegades, 
 their complaints and testimonies are not accepted 
 by the Turkish tribunals. Power which elsewhere 
 is believed to be too vast to be entrusted to the 
 most civilised of men, in Bulgaria is exercised by 
 the Ottoman barbarians, and from their will there 
 is no appeal. 
 
 In Russia we sometimes indignantly say that the 
 heart of England is eaten up with love of gold. 
 Surely that cannot be true. Still, what is Mr. 
 Forbes' argument, so eagerly repeated by Turko- 
 philes ? Is it not based upon a belief that money 
 is everything ? The Bulgarian, unlike " Devon- 
 shire Giles/' has more than nine shillings a week. 
 Therefore he needs no liberation ! His wives and 
 daughters are at the mercy of the Zaptieh. But 
 is woman's honour really nothing compared with 
 solid gold ? 
 
 Russians are pretty good judges of courage. 
 Well, there is not one Russian, who fought side by 
 side with the Bulgarians, who does not praise their 
 courage and their simple, determined way of meet- 
 ing death. Mr. Forbes himself, in his description 
 of the Shipka battles, showed that he shared 
 
Mr. Forbes Article. 119 
 
 Russian views upon this matter. A certain way of 
 sacrificing life is a very charming argument in 
 favour of the moral character of the nation. 
 
 The result of Turkish oppression on the character 
 of the Bulgarians is not favourable. But even 
 that, in Mr. Forbes' eyes, tells in favour of the 
 Turks, as the Bulgarians are so degraded they are 
 not worth saving. What, then, are we to say of 
 Him who came to seek and to save that which was 
 lost ? If four centuries of Turkish misrule have 
 brutalised these poor Bulgarians, is it not time that 
 it ceased ? Permit me to extract some words of 
 Earl Russell's I find in a pamphlet, given to me by 
 Messrs. Zancoff and Balabanoff, the Bulgarian 
 delegates. He wrote: "It would indeed be a 
 hopeless case for mankind if despotism were thus 
 allowed to take advantage of its own wrong, and 
 to bring the credence of its own crimes as the title- 
 deeds of its right. It would be, indeed, a strange 
 perversion of justice if absolute Governments might 
 say, ' Look how ignorant, base, false, and cruel our 
 people have become under our sway ; therefore we 
 have a right to retain them in eternal subjection, 
 in everlasting slavery.' " Yet this " strange per- 
 
120 Letter IX. 
 
 version of justice " is employed in order to damage 
 the cause of the Southern Slavs. 
 
 The Russian administration, according to Mr. 
 Forbes, is so very corrupt that a French corre- 
 spondent has employed himself in collecting and 
 authenticating cases of peculation with a view 
 to its future publication. If that French corre- 
 spondent does his work thoroughly he will be 
 entitled to the gratitude of the Russian people. 
 There are corrupt contractors I suppose in Rou- 
 mania, as there have always been in all wars, 
 and perhaps always will be, and we are more in- 
 terested in their detection and punishment even 
 than Mr. Forbes. But it is a mistake to attach 
 so exaggerated importance to such stories. Gam- 
 betta's contractors sold the new levies paper-soled 
 boots. Great fortunes were made by dishonest 
 purveyors to the army of the Potomac, and the 
 English army in the Crimea was not too well 
 served at the commencement of the war. Is there 
 no bribing in England not even among the de- 
 tective police ? Are " tips " and " commissions '' 
 known only in Russia ? But this is beside the 
 question. If Mr, Forbes will substantiate his 
 
Mr. Forbes' Article. 121 
 
 accusations we will thank him for revealing the 
 weak places in our armour. The charge that 
 Russian officers are willing to betray their country 
 for a bribe is too serious to be made in such vague 
 terms. It ought either to be supported with 
 details, dates, and names, or it ought not to be 
 made at all. Vagueness in a case like this is 
 simply cruel to the whole Russian army. At 
 present it cannot be investigated ; but, as an act 
 of simple justice, Mr. Forbes should so far over- 
 come his " melancholy " as to enable the Russian 
 nation to punish these traitors. 
 
 One word more about our officers. I am not a 
 military authority, and do not meddle with these 
 things. Englishmen, of course, who never have 
 any little difficulties between the Horse Guards 
 and the War Office, and who select their Com- 
 mander-in-Chief not because he is a Royal High- 
 ness but solely because he is the greatest military 
 genius in the land, cannot understand the existence 
 of such a thing as favouritism in the army. But it 
 is not necessary to resort to such an argument to 
 explain the absence of those Generals named by 
 Mr. Forbes from the seat or war. Todleben, for 
 
122 Letter IX. 
 
 instance, who, according to Mr. Forbes, was only 
 sent for as a last resource, was engaged at the 
 beginning of the campaign in putting the Baltic 
 ports in a position to resist the anticipated attack 
 of the English fleet. Kaufmann remained in 
 Turkestan because he of all men was best fitted 
 for the arduous and responsible work of governing 
 Central Asia. Only foreigners consider Turkestan 
 a sinecure or a Paradise. As for the " neglected 
 retirement " of Bariatinsky, it is the usual accusa- 
 tion that the Bariatinskys are in too great favour 
 at Court. Both charges cannot be true, and one 
 may be left to answer the other. Kotzebue is in 
 command at Warsaw, nor is the position one to 
 be despised. As for the lion-hearted Tcher- 
 nayeff, to whom I am heartily glad to see Mr. 
 Forbes pays a well-merited word of praise, I regret 
 as much as any one that he was not permitted to 
 take a prominent part in the campaign. But can 
 Englishmen not suspect the reason why the 
 General who fought against Turkey when Russia 
 was at peace, is not appointed at once to high com- 
 mand now that Russia is at war ? No one fought 
 in Servia without first resigning his commission in 
 

 Mr. Forbes* Article. 123 
 
 the Russian army, and diplomatic susceptibilities 
 might be offended if the Russian Government 
 were so completely to condone the part played 
 by Tchernayeff in the Servian War. 
 
 In conclusion, let me say that Mr. Forbes, as 
 unfortunately so many of our critics, generalises too 
 hastily from imperfect data. He jumps to errone- 
 ous conclusions, and prefers his own theories to 
 the well-attested evidence of trustworthy eye- 
 witnesses. M. Aksakoff thanked him for stating 
 " calm and bitter truths." The statements in his 
 last article may be " bitter/' but they certainly are 
 not " calm," and many of them as little deserve the 
 name of " truths." 
 
LETTER X. 
 
 M. KATKOFF AND THE "MOSCOW GAZETTE. 
 
LETTER X. 
 
 M. KATKOFF AND THE "MOSCOW GAZETTE." 
 
 [foreign newspapers frequently quote as representatives of 
 Russian opinion such journals as the " Golos" the 
 " St. Petersburg Exchange Gazette" and others, which 
 are by no means faithful exponents of the national 
 sentiment. It is to the " Moscow Gazette " that 
 undoubtedly belongs the honour of being the most 
 representative Russian newspaper, a fact which should 
 not be lost sight of when references are made to the 
 Russian Press.] 
 
 THE Moscow Gazette is the Times of Russia. 
 In one sense, but not in another. It is the 
 first paper in the Empire, but it leads rather than 
 follows public opinion. The Times veers with the 
 times. The Moscow Gazette adheres to its own 
 views. The Times is impersonal, anonymous. 
 
128 Letter X. 
 
 The Moscow Gazette is M. Katkoff, and M. Katkoft 
 is the Moscow Gazette. He has his colleagues, but 
 his individuality permeates the paper. 
 
 The Moscow Gazette belongs to the University 
 of Moscow, but M. Katkoff has leased it for twelve 
 years for a sum of more than 120,000, payable in 
 twelve annual instalments. It enjoys a monopoly 
 of the Government advertisements. Its circulation 
 and influence, always great, have received a re- 
 markable increase through the national movement 
 which resulted in the war. 
 
 Few men have influenced more deeply the 
 course of events in Russia since the Emancipation 
 than the quondam Professor of Philology in the 
 University of Moscow. A Russian of the Russians, 
 married to Princess Shalikoff, daughter of a Rus- 
 sian poet, he was at one time so ardent an admirer 
 of England and the English that his friends re- 
 proached him for his Anglo-mania, and even now it 
 is his journal which does most justice to the Eng- 
 lish nation in relation to the war in the East. 
 A brilliant author, a learned professor, a fearless 
 journalist, M. KatkofFs chief distinction is due 
 to the fact that he more than any man incarnated 
 
M. Katkoff and the "Moscow Gazette." 129 
 
 the national inspirations at three crises in Russian 
 history. 
 
 It was in 1863 that he first attracted the atten- 
 tion of Russia. In that year the determination of 
 the Poles that half of Russia should be included 
 in the limits of the Poland to which a Constitution 
 was about to be granted brought them into violent 
 collision with the Russian Government. All the 
 Powers of Europe began to intermeddle in the 
 matter. " You must do this ; you must not do 
 that," and so on. The despatches came pouring in 
 from this Court and from that, until even little 
 Portugal and barbarous Turkey ventured to send us 
 their prescriptions for pacifying Poland ! Russians 
 felt profoundly humiliated, and not a little indig- 
 nant. " Were we not to be masters in our own 
 house ? Were we to be treated as if we were the 
 vassals of the West ? " These angry questionings 
 filled every breast ; and, amid the irritation occa- 
 sioned by the intermeddling of the Foreign Courts 
 
 > 
 everything was forgotten but a stern resolve to 
 
 vindicate the national independence, At thatcrisi 3 
 in our history M. Katkoff came boldly to the fron t 
 embodied the thoughts of millions in his fiery arti- 
 
 9 
 
Letter X. 
 
 cles, and gave voice and utterance to the patriotic 
 enthusiasm of every Russian. When the storm 
 had passed, and all danger of war was averted by 
 the adoption of the independent policy which he 
 had so vigorously advocated, the intrepid spokes- 
 man of the national sentiment occupied the high- 
 est place in the esteem of his countrymen ever 
 attained by any journalist in Russia before or 
 since. A public subscription was raised, and M, 
 Katkoff was presented, in the name of thousands 
 of sympathisers throughout the Empire, with a 
 massive silver figure of a soldier in the old Russian 
 uniform, holding proudly aloft a standard, bearing 
 " Honour of Russia " as its inscription. 
 
 Some years later M. Katkoff came once more 
 to the front. The question of classical education 
 then excited intense interest throughout Russia, 
 and the Moscow Gazette led the van of the fight, 
 which resulted in the complete victory of the 
 classical party. As one result of this success 
 " The Lyceum of the Grand Duke Nicholas " was 
 founded at Moscow, in honour of the late Czare- 
 witch. M. Katkoff and M. Leontieff, his alter ego 
 ' and a very distinguished scholar were associated 
 
M. Katkoff and the "Moscow Gazette." 131 
 
 at first in the superintendence of the new institu- 
 tion. Since the death of the latter which was 
 lamented throughout Russia as a national loss 
 M. KatkofT has discharged alone the duties of 
 president. 
 
 The third great crisis in which M. Katkoff and 
 the Moscow Gazette did good service to the Russian 
 cause was in the Slavonic movement of last year. 
 M. KatkofT has never been identified with the 
 Slavophile party. But when the Servian war 
 awakened the national enthusiasm M. KatkofT 
 threw himself heart and soul into the Slavonic 
 cause. He guided, directed, and sustained more 
 than any single man the tumultuous current of 
 Russian opinion. The Moscow Gazette became 
 once more the exponent of the national convic- 
 tion, and to this hour it maintains the honourable 
 position of the leading journal of Russia. 
 
 M. Katkoff publishes not only the Moscow 
 Gazette but also a monthly literary organ the 
 Russian Messenger. He is famous throughout 
 Europe for his incisive style and his vigorous 
 hard-hitting. The courage with which he has 
 assailed abuses has not prevented the appointment 
 
132 Letter X. 
 
 of his daughter, Miss Barbe Katkoff, as demoiselle 
 d' Honneur to her Majesty the Empress. 
 
 It is impossible to do an author justice in a 
 translation, but some idea of M. Katkoff's method 
 of handling a subject may be formed from the 
 following rough condensation of the leading article 
 in the Moscow Gazette on Mr. Forbes' contribution 
 to the Nineteenth Century on " Russians, Turks, 
 and Bulgarians " : 
 
 After mentioning the fact that Mr. Forbes has 
 contributed an article to the Nineteenth Century, 
 the Moscow Gazette takes notice of his remarks on 
 the valour of the Russian soldiers, and the faults 
 of the Russian administration, observing that we 
 ourselves know our shortcomings, and fortunately 
 our mistakes are capable of an easy remedy. His 
 praises of the Russian soldier are especially grate- 
 ful, because the qualities which he eulogises are 
 not the product of a few months or years of drill, 
 but they are characteristic of the very nature of 
 the Russian nation. When Mr. Forbes speaks of 
 the Russians we accept his testimony as that of an 
 honest military man ; but when he proceeds to 
 speak of the Turks and the Bulgarians he loses 
 
M. Katkoffandthe "Moscow Gazette" 133 
 
 completely both his self-control and his conscience. 
 After referring to Mr. Forbes' testimony about the 
 Bulgarians, the article points out that, according to 
 the universal concurrent testimony of all English 
 travellers and officials, the Bulgarian, of all the 
 inhabitants of Europe, was the most patient and 
 industrious. As the soil of Bulgaria is naturally 
 very fertile, the application of the industry of the 
 Bulgarian naturally brings wealth. But, because 
 this patient worker begins to show signs of im- 
 provement, because after paying his heavy taxes 
 he finds some money left to build schools for the 
 education of his children, Mr. Forbes curses him ! 
 " Behold what they have got ! " he cries. " How 
 can we speak of their oppression ? Is it not 
 evident that life under the Turkish yoke cannot 
 be very unpleasant ? Even although the pros- 
 perous Bulgarian who has roses in his garden and 
 grapes over his door is ruined now and then by 
 the Zaptieh and the Tcherkess, what does it 
 signify ? Devonshire Giles would be glad to ex 
 change places with the victim of Turkish oppres- 
 sion ! " So says Mr. Forbes, and the phrase 
 undoubtedly looks very nice in print; but if it 
 
134 Letter X. 
 
 were possible to make such an experiment it 
 would be necessary to state to Devonshire Giles 
 a few facts which perhaps might make him less 
 desirous to enjoy the roses and the grapes of 
 Bulgaria. For instance, if he were told that he 
 would have to be not only the slave of every 
 Turkish official, but that every Turk could violate 
 the honour of his wife and daughters, and that he 
 himself would be liable to be treated like a dog 
 and hanged without redress, does Mr. Forbes think 
 that Devonshire Giles would be so eager to ex- 
 change his lot with that of the Bulgarian and take 
 his chance of the atrocities which Mr. Forbes seems 
 to have forgotten, but which Mr. Baring and Mr. 
 Schuyler described only last year ? 
 
 " Is it possible to make Mr. Forbes understand 
 that it is not the climate, nor the soil, nor the 
 industry of the Bulgarians, with its resultant roses 
 and grapes, that Russia wishes to change, but the 
 treatment to which the inhabitants are subjected, 
 which, under the Turk, is no better than that of 
 giaours and dogs ? 
 
 " The Turks have only done one act for which 
 they can be accused of humanity, and for that 
 
M. Katkoff and the "Moscow Gazette." i 35 
 
 solitary exception to their usual savage brutality 
 they are blamed by Mr. Forbes! They ought, 
 according to this Englishman, to have devastated 
 Bulgaria before the Russian advance. Philan- 
 thropists might scream, but wise men would have 
 approved of their action in laying a whole pro- 
 vince in ashes and driving the inhabitants into 
 exile ! And because they did not perpetrate that 
 crowning atrocity Mr. Forbes upbraids the Bul- 
 garians for their ingratitude for the ' generosity ' 
 of the Turks ! 
 
 " What can be the reason for Mr. Forbes' hatred 
 of this whole race of wretched, despised, poor, Chris- 
 tian people ? The reason is not far to seek. It 
 was these Bulgarians whose sufferings occasioned 
 the war. That war can only be terminated by 
 their securing complete independence from the 
 claws of the barbarian. An independent Bulgaria 
 means a weakened Turkey a prospect which is 
 distasteful to Englishmen. Hence this article, 
 which has been received as a Godsend by the 
 Cologne Gazettes and the Pall Mall Gazettes of 
 the Continent, who even accept his praises of 
 the Russians as a proof of his impartiality when 
 
136 Letter X. 
 
 he abuses the Bulgarians and eulogises the 
 Turks." 
 
 So far the Moscow Gazette. M. KatkofT shares 
 the mistake of many of my countrymen that an 
 Englishman is so naturally biassed in favour of the 
 Turks that he resorts to this bias as the easiest 
 explanation of Mr. Forbes' animus against the 
 Bulgarians. Had M. KatkofT been in England 
 lately he would have known that a great number 
 of the very best Englishmen are longing as 
 earnestly as himself for the final extinction of the 
 Ottoman Empire. 
 
 O.K. 
 
 Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Printers, London and Aylesbury. 
 
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